Confusing Things Christians Say - Week 2 - The CORE - Pastor Mike Novotny
Confusing Things Christians Say
Week 2 - The CORE
Pastor Mike Novotny
Good morning. Happy Sunday, welcome back to week number two, of our series called “Confusing Things That Christians Say”. This past summer, I was at a big Christian music festival. And I was walking from show to show when I pass this minivan, parked in one of the parking lots. Where someone had I think hand written a note and stuck it under the back windshield wiper. I'll show you a picture of what the note said it red. It's not a religion. It's a relationship.
It wasn't the first time I'd heard that Christianity, according to the note, is not a religion, it's a relationship. I've heard that before. I was down in South America, just a few weeks before in Argentina. I go to this local Argentinian church and the pastor, he’s standing up in front of people like I'm standing up in front of you and he says to the church, “No es una relación es Una relación.” Which means: “if you don't, it's not a religion, it's a relationship.” So different continents, different cultures, different languages. But Christians are all saying the same thing these days that the Christian faith is not a religion. It's a relationship.
I'm kind of curious what you think about that phrase. Do you agree or disagree, or do you kind of feel caught in the middle? I mean, on the one hand, technically isn't Christianity a religion out of all the world religions? I think it's the biggest religion over two billion people are self-confessed Christians. When it comes to mark the little box on the census. What religion? Are you But then again, just because you're religious or you go to church or say a few prayers, it doesn't mean you necessarily have a real or a close relationship with God. Jesus talk to ton about that Denis. But then again I mean it wasn't something like random pastor in the seventh century that invented the go-to-church stuff and say-your-prayers stuff. Isn't that kind of stuff in the Bible that we should be religious and have these spiritual habits and disciplines. But then again, when Jesus was walking the Earth, then he most often yell at, get frustrated with, people who went to church and said their prayers, but he claimed that they didn't have a real Faith or a real connection, with His father in Heaven.
Jesus, go to church and say his prayers and gave his offer, is what you have to say that Jesus, when it came to his weekend, habits were very, very religious. But then again, haven't you met people who are super religious but they're really not at all like Jesus? Now we go to church. They have a Bible at home and yet, they're not nice. They're not kind, they're not the kind of people that you want to be around. I mean, it isn't that where it comes from like just because you're religious just because you spend Sunday morning in a building, it doesn't make you really close to Jesus doesn't make you a person who brings blessing into other people's lives. There seems to be so much on either side of the religion and relationship debates. That's why today I want to slow down, want to push pause and I want to closely examine with an Open Bible. This confusing thing that a lot of Christians say, is what we're doing here is what God wants you to do week after week is be religious, or just have a personal relationship with Jesus somewhere in between. That's what we're going to unpack before today's “Amen”.
Because in the end, it's not just the Sunday habit. If we can figure out this tension between religion and relationship, we can give to your life, a God-given structure and schedule, we can give to you comfort and a purpose, I'll propose to you. I hope that before this message is over, you're not just going to have the answer to that question, but you're in a good pattern for how to live your life in a way that receives God's love. And gives God's love. So, let's kick off with part one to the religion part, and let me grab a pen because let's define what a religion is. The word. Religion comes from an old Latin word that literally means to bind Like be IND bind. So in the classic technical sense, religion is something that binds you to beliefs and behaviors.
Write a religious person can't just say, well, I think or I feel or this is my truth. This is what religion at least is in the technical sense. Binds you to a standard that is outside of you.
So in the Christian religion, a truly religious Christian person is someone who is bound to the beliefs and the behaviors that Jesus himself, spoke things that are outside of their heart, that they're now binding their heart to. So this is why, in Christianity, we talk about the Ten Commandments instead of the ten suggestions, you're not allowed to make up your own Ten Commandments. It's a standard that's outside of you. It's why early Christians had Creed's like the Apostles Creed. If you've heard of it, they said this is what the Christian faith is you. And I don't get to decide for ourselves what Christianity is. Here's the things that Jesus taught, the things that we promote the beliefs that we bind ourselves to, Yeah, try to describe it like this, I found this, a stretchy exercise band in my basement, haven't used in a long time. Let's pretend for a second that this is me, you don't pretend. This actually is me and this is a Bible, the beliefs and behaviors that Jesus promoted. And let's pretend that this stretchy rope is religion. So what our religion is meant to do is take me and this book and bind us together.
I’m supposed to wrap around with habits on the weekend, with structure, with Community, with the pastor, with people, with fellowship, so that my connection to this book is much more difficult to let go of. I might personally have days when I hold on really strongly to the ways of Jesus and there might be days when my grip is weak. But if I have a religion, if I have these outside standards and these people that keep me accountable, if I have these solid Creeds that don't come and go with my emotions and my feelings, a religion is meant to bind me to the teachings of this book and the God that is within it.
And this is what Jesus wants. All right, he loves us. He wants to be closely connected to us. He knows that it's easy to be distracted. And so he wants this system, the Bible we actually find a very, very organized structured system that Jesus created because he wants to keep you close to the god that is inside this book.
Some people, maybe even you, when you see this, you say, oh, that looks uncomfortable. Religion can be uncomfortable it binds you, it restricts you, and it keeps you accountable. It makes you willing to be judged by their people, which is something that many people shed and shun these days. But I would propose doing that when you look in the Bible, all of the religion and the structure and the pastors, and the service is all that binding is actually meant for your blessing.
Reminds me of an old story, a Greek myth. You may have heard of. I'll show you a picture of this guy Ulysses, and the sirens.
And you classic history lovers? Remember the story of Ulysses and his men who fought in the Greek/Trojan Wars. And they were taking this long, long, long journey home this giant Odyssey, but between the war and home were all kinds of dangers. Ulysses was actually married to his wife Penelope. Loved her, dearly missed her intensely. He just wanted to get home, but he knew between war and home was this long journey. And Ulysses had been warned that this actually was one of the most dangerous parts of the journey, the island of the Sirens. The Sirens were able to sing with the most enchanting song when they were at a distance, you didn't exactly know what they were or who they were but the sound of their message was so compelling. It was like a magnet for sailors and ships. Except the Sirens were vicious monsters, who devoured humans and scattered their island with their bones.
But Ulysses had been given a heads-up that the Siren call was nearly irresistible. So he took a bunch of wax, he stuffed it in his Sailors ears and then he commanded the men before the wax to bind him to the Mast of the ship. So they took the stoutest ropes on the ship and they wrapped Ulysses up so that when he heard the Siren call he can’t go anywhere.
As the story goes, when he first hears, the siren's voice, it is so beautiful and so compelling that everything in him wants to get closer.
He cries out to his men, he begs to be unbound. But they keep sailing on and Ulysses' life is saved.
That's like good religion.
See Jesus knows that there's like a voice out there in the world that sounds so sweet and so compelling that if we hear it without anything holding us back, we might do something that we regret for a long, long time.
Right? God's ultimate goal for us is not just to have a good day or a fun week like Ulysses. He wants to get us home to a place of infinite and eternal love. He wants to get us to God.
But Jesus knows, there are a lot of voices that make us forget about God.
Besides Aaron’s call of living, in the moment of redefining, right, and wrong by doing things, my way, it's so compelling because it's just a little bit easier than picking up a cross and following Jesus. And so, what did Jesus do? He creates a religion. He finds us. He gives us people who know us and love us and are there to encourage us and to judge us. He gives us a pastor to oversee our spiritual situation and to speak a message outside of us. So we don't redefine truth in our own way. He wants to get us to God and religion is the way he does it. Jesus' half-brother James actually spoke about this James chapter 1.
This is where we find these words “humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.”
This word outside of us that this word that Jesus preached, it can save us, forgive us, rescue us. And so James the saying “how, you know, humbly” like Ulysses be bound to it and have other people hold you accountable to it. This is why we can say, without a doubt, that Old Testament and New, the life and teaching of Jesus, God is pro church, God is pro-religion. God is pro-preaching. He is pro-community, pro-pastors. God wants you. He wants every one of his sons and daughters to be
But I can't end here. Because, well, the truth is there's a lot of people who seem very religious and they show up in a church and they say their prayers and they have their Bibles but something just seems off. Here's why?
Some people consider themselves very religious.
But they're not actually bound to the Bible.
They go to church and they say the prayer and they give the money and they do the outward thing. But when you look at their life, they're actually not bound to a lifestyle that honors the beliefs and the behaviors that God wants.
James is the same chapter of the Bible addresses, this He says those who consider themselves religious an interesting phrase, they think they're religious but they're really not bound. They consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues to see themselves. Religion is worthless. Right?
It's like the guy who wants to seem very Godly. So he brings his kids to church, but as soon as the service is over and there are no witnesses. Like you don't have a tight rein on his tongue and he hurts his family with his anger and his selfishness gods in heaven saying what?
I think I just wanted you to sit somewhere for an hour. No, I wanted all of that to change your heart and change the way you treat. The people closest to you in your life. You're not going to be perfect, but I want you to be bound to the behaviors that you heard on a Sunday morning. That's just to hear them and then to leave them behind. It turns out that when you read the Bible, there's a lot of bad religion. People who would pick and choose but just who would struggle to do the right thing, but who would leave whole pages and chapters of the Bible behind and the impact was not pleasing to God, like back in the Old Testament in the days of the Prophet Amos. If people went to church, in fact, that show up and give offerings to God, the band would start playing people would sing. They went, mumbled the lyrics and yet when God looked at what was happening,
He was not happy. Hurry to Amos chapter 5. Is God speaking, he says, “I hate.” Did you know that God hates?
“I hate,” God says. “I despise your religious festivals, your assemblies or church services are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, you think you're religious? I will not accept them. Away from the noise of your songs. Do not listen to the music of your harp. If I showed up on stage and say get the band out of here, stop singing, I hate this.
Well here's why God felt so strongly. He says, but let Justice roll on like a river and righteousness, like a never-failing stream. People came to church and then they took advantage of the poor. The judge would sing spiritual songs and then he take a bribe and injustice got the final word. God said, if you want to be religious, don't pick one or the other actually be bound to the things I say in my book.
The New Testament comes around. And Jesus shows up. And put his Jesus have the most beef with. The religious guys. Because they skip church, oh no. They went to church, because they never gave money to the church. “Oh no.,” he said they would pick little leaves out of their garden, and give one out of 10, just to make sure they were tithing.
But Jesus said to these church-going guys, “you've strained out a gnat and swallow a camel, you do the little religious thing but you miss the big thing like love, forgiveness, Justice righteousness. Jesus was all for church, just not that kind. So does God want you to be religious? Yes. But not partly religious, not picking and choosing people get hurt by partially religious people.
So write this. Now here's the biblical cure to this problem. The Biblical cure is that we must refuse to buffet, the Bible, you'll know what I mean by that. Quick show of hands. How many of you like buffets? If you're not raising your hand right now, I don't even understand you. As a human being the fakes are the best buffets amazing. Because you get what you want and you skip, what? You don't salad bar. No gracias. Dessert station. Yes, please give me the big, whatever you like, you could get out of it. Let me put it this way, at a buffet, your will is done. And Jesus says we just can't do that with the teachings of God, right? We can't skip the pages we don't like or the ones that are difficult. The Christian religion is a standard that is outside of us and so Christ cares about all of it.
So here's a big religious reflection question for us all today, is there any, is there anything God is serving in his word that you're skipping?
Is there any part you, just because it's costly, and it's difficult and it's too challenging that, you know, you want to feel like you have this connection to God, but you're just gonna not even try when it comes to that?
I could be a thousand different things for all of us here today. But I think James, back in the same chapter of the Bible, I think he puts his finger on, maybe the two big areas where you and I might struggle most. We take it back to James as words, he says, “religion that God, our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this.” So, there's a kind of religion that God accepts he loves, here's what it looks like. To look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
There are two big ideas in pure religion: is to help people and to stay pure.
Or there are distressed people. They are widows who've lost their companion, that they're lonely. They need time and conversation. There are orphans, who have no resources, no one to help them. Real religion sees people. It's not so busy praying that it can't help people. And real religion is bound, not to the polluted ways of this world, but the pure ways of the word of God,
Which of the two is more of a struggle for you?
I know it is for me. I mean I read my Bible, I make it to church, I got the auto-pay set up to give generous offerings but that's sometimes I feel like their religious guy in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Someone's in need. But I got a schedule to keep. I got boxes to check, I got things to do.
And what if God would say, hey Mike, the point of the book is to help the people.
But the point of your church is not just at church, It's the fill-up on the love of the God who helps people and then to help people.
But I'm not sure who, you know, that's in distress, my neighbor a widow and orphan. The poor person outside of the church. But the goal of all this is to inspire us, to love those people.
Now, I realize all of you aren't financially rich, but I will say this, as we live in first-century America, as this specific Community is incredibly prosperous. We just, I can't read the Bible. I can't go more than five pages in The Bible without finding God's immense love for disadvantaged and impoverished people.
It's a huge read, the book of Galatians like the Apostle Paul. When he went to spread the gospel, the other Apostles said, “okay, you can but only if you don't forget the poor and Paul said, well obviously, because biblical faith is bound to giving generously to those in need. And so it's one of I'm gonna push you religiously. I want to pass through you. Well, I want to bind your heart. I want to bind your budget until the day you die, two loving people in practical ways. That if you gave your past her access to your schedule and your bank account, there would be evidence that what's on God's heart is on your heart. We can't, we can't Worship in a fancy church and we can't jump in our Bluetooth cars and we can't make it home to our big screens without having a huge big heart for the thing that is on God's heart. So people and purity.
Now, some people think they're very spiritual. And they're all about people, about being kind but being there with a hug and a prayer but they have forgotten about moral purity. We bought into “you know it's my Truth” and “Love Is Love” and “Marriage is a piece of paper” and “I'm going to do what feels right” if they have totally forgotten what is also all over the pages of the Bible. That God is holy and pure, and he loves righteousness and Purity, that we should flee from sexual Temptation and that God honors a marriage when a man and a woman have made a covenant together. The world will not tell us such things. But James is passionate about such things. Religion, that God accepts, is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress. And, tTo keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
So friends, God wants you to be religious.
Today as I speak, as I read these words, what is, what is God trying to bind your life to? What's something that maybe slipped through your fingers that through his word. He's trying to make your new passion.
But that was the hard part.
Y'all ready for the fun part?
When I say that the spirit feels kind of heavy is God's like working on us. But I got to stay in the same book where I find these high standards for loving and sacrificing. For other people, I find the most ridiculous, beautiful life-changing, eternity shifting compelling, message about the relationship that God has with us through Jesus.
Grab up. And we're ready to on this way. I think a relationship. At least a good healthy relationship is a connection with affection.
And some of you may be who grew up going to church, I know if you've ever heard this that in real Christianity, what God wants to bind your beliefs to is that through Jesus, you have a connection that is bursting with affection.
I'm getting my favorite three examples. There's plenty more in the Bible sometimes talks about the connection that people have with God, like a perfect Father. In heaven with his incredibly adored kids. Let me say one passage the old Apostle John: 1st John chapter 3 says this: “See what great love the father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God and that is what we are.”
Most Scholars think that John was like 90 years old, when he wrote those words. Ever seeing your great grandpa, get that amped up about anything?
This is what we are featuring, like, zooming around in the wheelchair, like fist-bumping. Like children of God, he could not believe it. And as parents, man, I can't get, I cannot get enough of this truth or my moms and dads at church today. That's a nice high parents. Like you know, how you love your kids. Can you look, you imagine a god who loves us so much more?
I had two daughters 15 and 13 and when I tuck them in at night, the 15-year-old kind of wishy-washy about the dad stuck in fire, but I'm going to wear her down. I swear, I think about that. Like, I've seen these kids and all their flaws. They've sinned against me. How many times and yet I feel something for these two. I’d do anything for them.
And I'm a sinful human. Imagine how God I think about that. Oh God. This is the affection. Do you feel for me? I'm not a burden to you. I'm not like a footnote for you. I'm the kid that you love more than I love these kids. That thought blows my mind. Like I cannot think that religion is rigid and dogmatic and boring and a half to when I think that it binds me to the love of a God. Who doesn't just put up with me or write some moral contract with me? He loves me more than I love my kids. That is insane. But I don't blame John for the exclamation point. Points children of God. This is what we are.
And then, if that wasn't good enough, the Bible also describes the Christian religion as a relationship where God is like a husband and we’re his beloved bride. Isaiah chapter 62, says, “as a bridegroom or a groom rejoices over his bride. So will your God Rejoice over you?” How many have gone to a wedding in the last three months and summer weddings are celebrated you ever watched the groom at that epic moment in the wedding when the bride shows up for the first time? I remember, years ago, there was a husband named Josh, he's like this barrel-chested dude who could have snapped me with, like his little, his little finger. He laid concrete for a living and I'm standing right there, he's next to me and then Megan shows up and this dude, just melts with affection for his bride. And I'm just watching him thinking, that's how God feels about us.
Some people have this strict view of God, like he's a judge and have it sending lightning bolts down when you mess up. No, no, you don't. I think God is like I think. He's like Josh.
And when Jesus, who bled and died to take away our sin, he saved us from all of that. What he did is to give us righteousness, like a standing with God, that makes us so moving that, how is this possible? That God himself almost melts with emotion when he thinks about his people?
I can't get my brain around that. But I love it so much. Think about the way I feel about Kim, my wife and to know that is like 1% of the affection and emotion that God has for me. It's stunning. My religion is not just about an auto-pay offering or our Sunday habit, it's about connecting me to this. God, who loves me more than I would ever believe, and then if that isn't enough, let me give you one more. Jesus, sometimes said that Christianity is like having a perfect friendship with God. John 15, Jesus said, “I have called you friends. For everything that I learned from my father, I have made known to you.”
You don't you're when you're with your best friend and you don't feel pressed them, your hair doesn't have to be fancy. Throwing your sweatpants like just relax, be talk connects. That's how Jesus said he is with his people.
Imagine if like Jesus showed up right now in the middle of his church service, we just like bursting with glory and beauty and it's like he pauses the part and he looks at you and said “everyone, my best friend is here.”
Like what? Because he's not ashamed or embarrassed. It's like he needs to make time to connect with you. He says, I have called you friends. Like the best relationships that you and I ache and long for to have a person. Perfect relationship with our parents, a perfect relationship with a partner. A perfect relationship with our friends. This is what the Christian religion is all about. And I got to tell you, I love, I love being religious.
I love the fact that 1,000 Sunday's have bound me to a belief in God that I never could have invented on my own. Who, who would ever say I make God happy? I'm Jesus best friend. God loves me more. Like I would never be bold enough to say that but my religion the Christian religion of this book, promise me. This is me exactly that friends. Jesus did not bleed and die and rise to bind you to a pew. He did all that to bind you to a person. A perfect relationship with a perfect God.
So, I didn't take that little note out of the windshield wiper of the van and tear it up and put it in my pocket.
But I could have. It's not a religion, it's a relationship”... false. It IS a religion. Thank God. It's a belief that I'm bound to. Specifically, the behavior, the belief that I have a God, who is my Father in Heaven, who’s like a groom with his bride. It was like a best friend and a friendship that will never end.
Grab a pen one last time. Let me write down this truth. I would propose to you biblically that Christianity is a relational religion.
It is a religion, but it is so relational or call it a religious relationship. It's a connection to God that we’re bound to. And it is also beautiful. So a couple of months ago, my wife came and I celebrated 20 years of marriage together. 20 years, it's pretty awesome. Thank you very much. 12 of them have been awesome. So we are super happy to know my daughter said, “dad, that was so mean when you said that I thought we had a perfect marriage, we've had ups and downs. You've been to counseling before as we're trying to raise kids and get through it all. But I would say this. “Kim and I are so close in our relationship right now.” Thank you. God is so so strong. And if you ask me and Kim like, well how did you get this relationship? She and I would both give you the same answer.
We're religious.
We have bound ourselves to a weekly habit called Date Night. Date Night is the best night, or we don't wait to see how we feel, or what we think, or what y'all are doing. We say no, to almost everything and almost everyone and we bind that time together, so we can connect any good food and make out and listen to each other. My kids. I won't go any further than that, right? This is a weekly time that we connect. And what do you know? Being religious about that, once a week schedule makes our relationship better than ever.
Sound familiar?
God wants you to be religious. Is want you to wait and see how the weekend goes. He wants you to be in a church, this church or some other Church, week after week to waste your time. No, he wants to speak words to you, that you would never ever believe if he didn't say them again and again, and again that he is your father in Heaven. He is your best friend as a groom rejoices over his bride. So God rejoices over, you put a relationship. So, see you next Sunday.
What's right? Oh God. We live in a world that encourages us to be spiritual but not religious.
A world that sees the flaws of the church and the pastors and the televangelists and throws the baby out with the bathwater. I've got it. Thank you for saving us from that. Thank you at the end of the day, we're not just bound to how we feel, or what we think, instead, we're bound to this unchanging promise of your unchanging love. I pray for one who's here today, everyone who's listening that you would bind us to a community of Faith, spiritual oversight, to accountability, and most importantly, to these beliefs about your unconditional love for us through Christ. John can get used to it and we can't either. We are your children and you are a perfect father who always is there for us, always forgives us. Always loves us. We wouldn't believe it unless you had repeatedly set it. So thank you, God.
I pray to God that our religion won't stop here. That after the “amen” and the closing blessing, we would walk out and bind ourselves to behaviors of helping and loving people. Not us, never easy. God’s love is almost always an interruption. So help us remember. This is our calling, this is our purpose and Inspire us with your forgiveness to do it day after day after day, until we see your loving face God. We pray these things in the beautiful name of your one and only son through whom we are born again and can call you our father in Heaven. It's in his name that we pray and all God's people said, amen.
