, I'm excited for today, , to be able to preach God's word.
Also excited about a football game, uh, that's coming up, Craig.
And so, , some have already accused me of, uh, trying to hurry up and end the service
early so that I could go see the king.
And that is partly true.
That is partly true.
I want to be honest here.
We're talking about the real Jesus.
I better be real myself.
Amen.
All right, so, , let's go ahead and, let's get into it here again.
So we're searching for the real Jesus.
We're trying to discover.
We're trying to maybe rediscover, maybe renew, maybe have something refreshed,
maybe learn something that maybe never stood out to us about the real Jesus.
And also observing, okay, well what does that.
For my life.
What does it mean to follow the real Jesus?
And so last week we looked at how Jesus is powerful in Word indeed.
And how if we follow him, he can give us what we call God confidence,
really confidence in God in our daily lives, in our daily interactions.
And so we also had a call for prayer.
And if you weren't, uh, able to pray last week and you forgot God forgives
you there, uh, I don't, but God does.
Amen.
And so, uh, but I wanna encourage you still, you can still pray for
our church, pray for us to experience this God throughout the weeks here.
And again, really, maybe it becomes part of your, your routine
prayer, whatever the case may be.
But I wanna encourage us, let's all engage in praying for each other.
Amen.
And if we're all, uh, uh, uh, solidified and on the same page about
praying for the same thing again, Jesus promises that the Lord hears us
in a very special and profound way.
And I think we'll see God do some more incredible things in our lives.
Here's what we're going to talk about today here, all right?
Is that the real Jesus was not religious, but righteous.
The real Jesus, not religious, but righteous.
Let's go ahead, let's pray.
Father, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thank you for giving us the scriptures, father, for Jesus coming on earth,
and God living the life he lived.
Not only was he sinless, and that is just incredible to understand, to fathom
God, how he revealed you in fullness, but yet the character that Jesus
had, The man that he was, the person that he was and how he interacted,
how he revealed your true nature.
God, it is so incredibly awesome.
I know.
I just, this whole week, God, I, you know, it, I, I I just been getting giddy.
Every time I start thinking about the new things or things I'm being
reminded of, I just get so excited and I fall more and more in love with you.
And God, I pray that today, God, that as we look at Jesus, God that we will
be inspired, God will be challenged, but God will be refreshed at the
opportunity to follow the real Jesus.
It's in his name.
Amen.
I was on campus, uh, uh, I was at U USC campus.
We were leading the, the college ministry.
And somehow, uh, I got into this conversation.
We're out sharing our faith, and this guy walks by and I'm talking to him and
I'm, I'm trying to engage him to have some type of spiritual conversation.
And, uh, somehow the conversation turned to, he says, well, I
don't really wanna be religious.
And I said, well, what if God doesn't want you to be religious?
and that ped that peaked his interest.
And I believe as we study out Jesus here today, we're gonna see that
Jesus doesn't want us to be religious and that he actually himself wasn't
religious, but he was righteous.
And we're gonna see and be able to determine what we mean by that.
Cuz some are thinking, well that doesn't make sense, Jesus,
isn't he a religious figure?
So it seems like he would want us to be religious.
But again, Jesus is righteous, not religious.
So we're gonna go ahead and continue in the letter or biography
of Luke, uh, that chronicles the life and ministry of Jesus Church.
Are you still with me here?
All right.
I want you to turn over in your Bibles to Luke chapter five, Luke chapter five.
But I want us to set up and have an understanding for
many of us, this is gonna be a refresher course for some of us.
This is gonna be new information in understanding the context.
Of which Jesus and his ministry was in.
Because if you can understand the context, you can get deeper truths from it, and you
can understand Jesus in a more profound way and really be in awe of Jesus.
And so I want us to understand a little bit of the background here.
Especially when it comes to following God and his commandments.
And so first off, here we have God giving the law, right?
It's called the law.
So as you receive that, capital L that's referring to God, giving the
law to his people through Moses.
All right?
Remember the Prince of Egypt movement, right?
All right.
So he gives the law to Moses, uh, to, to his people.
Later on, we have God's people on and off and following, but they
get to the point where they truly, as a general nation, have really
left and been unfaithful to God.
So he allows them to be conquered by the Babylonians and his Syrians.
And so now they're exiled.
You guys with me here?
Okay.
And so we're seeing this departure from following God's commands,
but then God's people get called back and there's a renewal.
As they return from captivity, they return from exile.
The people decide, you know what?
We're gonna live for God again.
And we're gonna follow God's word.
And honestly, to this day, the, the, uh, whether it's those who have, uh, become
Christians or those who have, uh, been a part of Judaism, have never really been
truly convicted of having idolatry in the same way after their return from exile.
But then we get into the point here about second century bc you
have this group that comes along and emerges, called the Pharisees.
And the Pharisees were this group that were, so, their causes we're talking
about the Jesus cause their causes.
We gotta get God's people to be faithful to God again.
So we need to obey the written law.
But you know what, we have some things we call oral law or the tradition of the
elders that are in place to ensure that God's people follow his commandments.
And so over time, actually what happened is you would have, they
created out over thousands of rules to ensure that God's people followed.
His commandments.
You guys with me here?
Now, that's a whole lot, isn't it?
We can't even remember the 10 commandments, some of us,
you know what I'm saying?
Let alone thousands to add to the commandments.
And so this is the setting in which Jesus enters.
So now this has been the setting, the, the, the, the uh, uh, the context
for about 200 years of the Pharisees being the most influential group.
And so people are becoming more and more familiar with God's word, but
they're also becoming more and more familiar to adhering to all these
rules that are in place to ensure that you obey God's word strictly.
You guys get what I'm saying?
So this is the context, and this will help us to understand that
Jesus was not religious, but righteous brothers and sisters.
Are you with me?
Yes, sir.
All right, let's go ahead and let's get into it.
So in Luke chapter five, in verse one through 11, Jesus
does something pretty radical.
He calls these men to become his followers.
And these were kind of, uh, your, your blue collar, uh, group there.
And so even that alone really wasn't the religious thing to do because rabbis
with, at the age of 13 or 15 called those who were qualified, Hey, Brian,
lapel, you look like you're qualified.
Come follow me.
Uh, Travis, you didn't make the cut go with your family.
Okay.
All right.
And so that's the way it was.
I love Travis.
I'm just using an example.
Don't stone me.
Okay?
And so they would go here and they would call us.
So you had to be qualified for a rabbi to call you with Jesus looks at some
fishermen, some rough ragtag type guys.
Hey, hey, hey, you know the Gary Torres type.
I'm just playing with you, Gary.
All right, but Gary, come on over.
I want you to follow me.
So this is radical in itself.
He's doing something that's departing.
Departing from.
The religious norm.
You guys see this here?
And so unfortunately, we don't have time to go through every scripture,
although I would love to be able to do that, but we weren't able to do that.
So now we're in Luke chapter five in verse 12.
Brother and sisters, are you with me here?
All right.
Luke chapter five.
It says, while Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along
who was covered with leprosy.
Now, leprosy was a skin disease.
And so when you had leprosy in, in, in, during this time
that you were ex communicator, you had to be on the outcast.
Unless you were cured or somehow relieved of your leprosy, you had to be
on the outside and, and it made sense because if one person gets leprosy,
the whole community could be infected.
And now we could possibly have some serious death upon our community.
You guys get this here, right?
So here's the scene.
All right.
So when he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, Lord,
if you are willing, you can make me clean.
And immediately leprosy immediate leprosy left him.
Then Jesus ordered him.
Don't tell anyone.
But go show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded
for your cleansing as a testimony to them.
Yet the news about him spread all the war said that the crowds of people
came to hear em and he healed and to be healed of their sicknesses.
But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and pray.
Let's just stop right there.
Let's make a couple quick observations here.
It says He reached out and touched the man.
Now, this is incredible because again, if you were to touch somebody with
leprosy, you put yourself at risk of what?
Getting leprosy yourself.
But also, again, remember for all this period of time, remember
what was in place was, Hey, if you touch someone who's unclean, then
you are now ceremonially, unclean.
And so Jesus now touches someone who's unclean, and it's incredible
because he doesn't become unclean, but he purifies the leper.
. Isn't that true of us spiritually?
We come in with all kind of mess.
Well, God, if I come in, I might corrupt the church.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
You come in and Jesus purifies you.
And so we see something profound.
You know, I read this and I wanna read this, says, it is of the very
essence of Christianity, to touch the untouchable, to love the unlovable,
to forgive the unforgivable.
Jesus did.
And so must wee, but let's go on.
It says here, Jesus told 'em, don't go.
Don't go and tell anybody, but go to the priest and show them
that you've been cleansing.
So Jesus is telling him, Hey, you know what?
There's a command in Leviticus, actually Leviticus chapter 14, and you need to
make sure you go ahead and follow this.
And so I want you to go ahead and go and do what God's word commands you to do.
Now this is a golden nugget that I need you to hold onto.
Okay?
You guys with me.
Okay, so remember you have this scene and he tells them to what?
Follow God's word.
You need to follow the Old Testament.
You need to go ahead and do this.
So Jesus here upholds the biblical mandate and follows and even promotes
following what the mosaic law.
And so now we're gonna continue going here and in verse 17 through
26, we don't have time to read, but Jesus heal, heals a paralyzed man.
And oh man, I wish I had enough time to also do that, but then, uh, I, I, you
know, we'd be missing the 49ers game.
Okay, so, so, so here you go again.
I'm just playing with y'all.
Well, partially playing.
Okay.
Alright.
So he goes and he does that.
And maybe you could look at that in your small groups this week.
It is a powerful, rich story.
But we're gonna jump on down to verse 27.
After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name
of Levi sitting at his tax booth.
Follow me.
Jesus said, Timmy.
Levi got up, left everything and followed him.
Now, this was radical.
This was radical.
Jesus sees a tax collector in almost every society.
Nobody likes the tax collectors.
You work for the I R S in America.
You gotta say that on the download.
Like, ah, I work for this company.
You know what I mean?
And so he says, Hey, look.
He calls and he says, you tax collector, follow me.
Now, this is radical for any Jew to even associate with the tax
collector because they were hated.
They were seen as traitors.
They were seen as wicked, sinful people.
And in fact, when we go, when we find out, uh, through Jewish writings from,
uh, really after the first century on, we can see the attitude that
people had towards tax collectors.
I wanna show you some of these things so you can understand how
radical Jesus is in this moment.
Here's what it says, the tmu, which is a collection of Jewish writings
and sayings and has the oral law that, that, that is mentioned throughout,
it says, place tax collectors amongst, alongside murderers and robbers.
Hey, uh, so we got murderers, robbers, and tax collectors.
That's pretty intense, isn't it?
Goes on and says the rabbis taught that tax collectors were disqualified
witnesses in court, societal, outcasts, and utter disgraces to their own family.
You can't have a task collector in court.
We, we don't trust them at all.
The rabbi's excommunicated task collectors from the Senegal.
You can't come to our church service.
You better be outside.
Tax collectors weren't allowed to exchange their money at the Temple Treasury.
Now that's intense.
I'm not even gonna accept your money.
My my kids are selling Girl Scout cookies.
They'll accept anybody's money.
You know what I'm saying?
They said, we're not even gonna accept your money.
Then it goes on and says, the rabbis listen to this one.
The rabbis even considered it lawful to lie in almost any conceivable way to avoid
paying task collectors now do not lie as part of the 10 Commandments, right?
And so they're trying to uphold the 10 Commandments as strict as possible.
But you know how you get outta that, that commandment when it
comes to the task collectors, you can lie in any of your way.
That's how much they hated and looked down upon tax collectors.
So then we come back and he says, what?
Follow me now?
Everybody would've been like, whoa, this is crazy.
This is radical.
For Jesus, not only to associate, but then he goes and he invites them and
he invites them to not only be around him, but to actually be his follower.
This is radical.
And then we go ahead here and it says here, and we want to just stop here,
says that, that the tax collector Levi, excuse me, left everything and followed.
This is a huge cost for Levi.
Test collectors were overall wealthy and so now here he is leaving his occupation,
his opportunity to continue having financial advancement to follow Jesus.
Now think about this.
All of the other followers of Jesus, they can go back to their old lives.
If this Jesus thing doesn't really work out, I can go back to fishing.
Not a problem.
This Jesus cause didn't really work out.
But Levi, he can't go back to being a test collector.
He can't go back to his old lifestyle.
So what did that mean?
It was a true commitment, wasn't it?
And so that's also a little side note for us, following the
real Jesus is a true commitment.
This isn't something we do and think, oh, let me just try it.
No, it requires a full commitment to following Jesus.
Can I get an amen?
Amen.
Let's continue reading.
Then.
Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house and a large crowd of tax collectors
and others were eating with him.
Not only does he have one, but now he's got a whole crew of sinful,
wicked tax collectors and others people, and what are they doing?
Eating it up, eating and having a good old time?
It says, but the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belong to
the SEC, complain to his disciples.
Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?
Let's stop right there again, we talked about the Pharisees.
Again, this is a refresher course.
For, for many of us, but some of us, this is new.
Again, the Pharisees were the most influential group.
You had the scenes, you had the sades, and you had the Pharisees.
So they were the most influential group.
Remember for about 200 years, they're the ones who have really dictated
and determined in fashioned Judaism.
And so here they are and, and their name actually means the separate ones.
And so again, their call and their cause they felt was to
build a fence around the law.
We wanna make sure that nobody violates God's law.
So that's why you get to all these different laws that are created to
ensure God's law doesn't get violated.
In fact, the Sabbath, uh, they, they had 39 categories of how you
could possibly violate the Sabbath.
I'm like, how'd you come up with 39?
And then there's categories within those 39.
And so they built this fence.
Around the law and they wanted to be separate.
Their name means separate one, just so they wanted to be separate from anything
that was unclean and especially any person who was considered to be unclean.
So now as Jesus is having a good time, man, we eating it up.
Let's get some chicken wings, all that girl falafels, whatever they're
eating, and fish right there.
He sees them with all these sinners and they're like, hold on this.
This doesn't make any sense.
Wait, wait, wait.
What is he doing?
You're eating with tax collectors and sinners.
Why does he do this?
Because any religious figure would never do such a thing.
If this is a religious leader, then he would know.
You aren't supposed to be unclean because if you interacted with
somebody who was unclean, guess what?
That made you.
Unclean.
And again, they hated tax collectors because tax collectors, not only
were they cheats and, and traders, but they were also mingling
with the hated gentile Romans.
And so again, they were hating.
So this man, he accepts them.
He, he, he's eating with them.
And again, they're at this table, they're eating.
And so what this communicate is what There's fellowship.
I have fellowship with you guys.
And guess what it also meant?
There's acceptance.
I have accepted you.
I fellowship with you, the unclean, wicked, sinful person.
And so again, the religious establishment can't stand this.
And what does Jesus say in return there?
He says it is the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
I not come to call the righteous but sinners to repent.
. Is this the righteous or the religious thing to do by Jesus?
Let's go ahead.
Let's continue.
Church.
Are you still with me?
It says, they said to him, John's disciple, this is John the Baptist.
Often pray and fast, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but
yours going, eating and drinking.
Jesus answered.
Can you make the friends of the bride groom fast while he is with them?
I just love this.
You see something again about the real Jesus here.
He says, Hey, hey, you know what?
Here's what I'm gonna guys, when you follow me, it's like being at a wedding.
Now think about your time at a wedding.
Everybody's having a good time.
Everybody's loving it, except for the parents of the bride and groom,
sometimes because they're crying my baby.
You know what I'm saying?
I remember my mom, she was crying.
I was like, mom, I don't see you cry.
She was, oh, my baby's getting married, you know?
And then she was like, you're so happy.
I was like, I just got married.
And she loves Karina, so I don't want you to get the wrong impression.
Okay?
All right.
You know what I'm saying?
But, but she, you know, but at a wedding, everybody's fired up and
he says, when you follow the real Jesus, it's like being at a wedding.
This is a good time.
Now there's challenges, don't get me wrong here, but that's the analogy he
first uses to respond to this question.
And then we keep reading, he says, but the time will come when the
bride groom will be taken from them.
And in those days, they will fast.
Okay?
So he's alluding to the time that he's going to die, and
then he'll be resurrected.
He told him this parable, no one tears the peace out of a
new garment to patch an old one.
Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment and the patch from the
new will not match the old, and no one pours new wine into old wine skins.
Otherwise, the new wine will burst.
The skins, the wine will run out, and those wine skins will be ruined.
New wine must be poured into new wineskins and no other, and no one
after drinking old wine wants the new for they say the old is better.
Okay, let's go back and let's break this down a little bit here.
It talks about fasting and praying.
You see, the Pharisees had systematized sy systematized here.
All right, I'm trying to say that word correctly, systematized.
The fall, uh, the, the faith, they made it all systematic.
And so what this idea of fasting in the Old Testament, there was
a requirement of God's people to fast on the Day of Atonement.
However, what the Pharisees did, the Pharisees decided, you know what?
We're not gonna fast just on those days.
We're gonna fast.
And again, they're the religious leaders, right?
Follow us.
We're gonna fast every Monday and Thursday.
. And then what they would do when they would fast, they would, you know, put
whiten their face up and they would be able to be seen that they were fasting.
So it was known to everybody.
It's Monday and Thursday, there's go those pharisees, they're fasting again.
And so they're trying to make it known how religious they are.
And so they're asking, why don't you?
And you're disciples are, why don't your disciples fast away?
Ours do.
Or even the way John the Baptist, uh, disciples do.
And then prayer was systematized as well.
Prayer was offered at 12 midday, 3:00 PM and 6:00 PM So there
were set times in the day.
Now praying three times a day, is that a bad thing?
No, but it become rule, it become a systematic form of religion.
You guys see what's going on?
. And so this is what they're referring to.
And now here's the interesting thing, Jesus, he actually doesn't dismiss or or
discredit their, their, their practices.
But he reveals he doesn't require that from his followers.
He didn't make up a new rule and mandate that went beyond what
God's desire was for his people.
And so Jesus here then gives them a parable to let them know, Hey, his
way is new and it's incompatible with their form of religion.
And so I don't know about you, but did you see it?
Did you catch it as we walked through?
Did you catch it?
Did you perceive it?
Did you see that the real Jesus was not religious but righteous?
He's in this form of religiosity, but that's not what he practiced and that's
not what he required from his followers.
You see, we gotta break this down a little bit more here.
When we talk about being religious or religiosity, here's the thing
with religiosity or what we, we what, what I'm defining as religious, what
happens, it can become manmade rules.
It's not the word of God.
It's become practices, but they now are rules that you must follow.
It become legalistic in our approach to following God.
It's now about the appearance.
It's based on how you look to those around you.
But then it could lead to pride in being judgmental, thinking your better,
and now looking down upon those who don't practice where you think or your
rules or your habits or your beliefs.
It also could be lifeless and just systematic and maybe the worst of all.
It can lack true repentance and then justify sin because I do
these things, so therefore there's no true change from within.
Does any of this sound or look familiar to you?
Some of us, this is what we grew up in, but think about this on
a larger scale, what do we say?
Orange County doesn't need more churches.
They need the real Jesus.
Why?
Because a lot of people view this as Jesus, lifeless, manmade rules,
legalistic, all about appearances, judgmental, but this isn't the real Jesus.
We just saw it in chapter six.
He wasn't religious, he was righteous.
And so we see here that the real Jesus, when we talk about being
righteous, we're talking about being right in the eyes of God.
This is not perfection for you and me.
This is being rights in the eyes of God.
It's following the heart of God's command.
It's talking about being from the heart and not just outward appearance.
There's a desire for God's will in our lives.
It's a desire to stay close to him and to please him.
This is true righteousness.
When the doors are closed and nobody's around, there's
no accolades that await you.
Nobody can give you a reward.
What's your life like then?
This is what Jesus lived out.
This is what Jesus promotes.
This is what Jesus calls his followers to, to be righteous from within and let
that flow out to our outward behavior.
Church, are you with me here?
And what does he do?
He called the people to what?
He says, Hey, I'm not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Well, who does that apply to?
Every single one of us.
The problem with the Pharisees, they're religious, so I don't see it.
Oh, I fast twice a day.
How you gonna tell me I'm a sinner?
Well, I go to church every Sunday.
I, in fact, I go to church on Wednesday and Sunday.
How you gonna tell me I'm a sin?
Amen.
But Jesus called them and he calls everyone to what?
Repentance.
That's change.
Jesus is not inviting people to be a part of this new club.
He's calling people to be changed and to find true salvation and to
become what God created us to be.
And that's righteous in a right relationship with our Heavenly Father.
The real Jesus rejects manmade rules that become law, and he also rejects
the justification for our sin.
Hey, hey, I'm gonna reject these manmade laws.
But you know, I also reject this idea that you justify your sin with all these laws.
You see, Jesus raises the bar on true righteousness.
This isn't about just how we might behave or religious activities.
Jesus raises the bar to another level, and we see this all throughout.
Luke chapter six.
Brother and sisters, are you still with me here?
Yes.
Look at what he says here.
These are several things he mentions.
Love your enemies.
Do good to those who hate you.
Whoa, bless those who curse you.
Pray for those who mistreat you due to others as you would have them do to you.
Be merciful.
Just as your father is merciful.
Do not judge or you and you will not be judged.
Do not condemn and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
First, take the plank out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to
remove the spec from your brother's eye.
You see, Jesus took righteousness to a whole nother level, didn't he?
This wasn't about following rituals and ceremonial cleansings.
This was about righteousness from within.
In that goes beyond what we're naturally accustomed to or even what
we would naturally want to do, and so we see Jesus here is righteous.
His standard is higher, but it brings true, authentic faith that
starts from within and flows out.
And so again, we're reminded Jesus was not religious.
He was righteous.
He obeyed the Old Testament law.
Remember that gold nugget?
What'd he do?
He said, Hey, go see, just like the Mosaic law says, go see them after
your cleansing of being of leprosy.
He didn't dismiss this.
He followed it, but he rejected all these manmade rules that were formed.
And so we see again, he heals the leper.
He touches them.
Nobody would do that.
He recruits a wicked tax collector to be his disciple.
That's righteous.
He ate what sinners, but yet called them the repentance.
That's righteousness.
He didn't call his followers to fast and pray like the religious leaders did.
He revealed true, rich, righteous living in the kingdom of God.
You see, Jesus radically oppose religion by rule.
Jesus radically opposed religion by rule.
So here's the question for every single one of us today, is, are
we religious or are we righteous?
And again, righteous isn't perfect.
Are you religious or are you righteous?
And you know what, this requires true humility in answering,
because if you're like me, I wanna say no, I'm not like a Pharisee.
That's not me.
In fact, I see clearly what they did wrong.
But any of you start to analyze, wait a second, where do I place my value?
How do I judge how I'm doing spiritually?
And so we have to be humble and hon and honest when we answer this question.
Cuz I know I used to be religious in this way.
I used to justify a whole lot of stuff.
I was just telling, uh, uh, Isaiah there the other day.
We, we got together.
And I would justify, I would, I'd be like, yeah, you know what?
It's okay for for me to be sexually immoral because you know what?
I believe wholeheartedly that Jesus is a son God.
Huh.
Oh, you know what?
I could get drunk every week and, you know, why could Jesus drank wine?
I mean, that was some of the stuff I would say.
And I would justify this.
And I was religious and I would make sure I was like, oh, this is, you know, my, my,
my roommates at college used to laugh me.
Cause I was like, all, you know what?
Uh, I gotta make sure I pray every day before midnight.
So we'd be hanging out, be like 1158, and I'd be like, oh my goodness.
Uh, I gotta go pray.
And I was like, I don't have anywhere to go.
And I'd like, Hey guys, excuse me.
And I would turn over on my bed and I'd say you a quick prayer.
And then I'd turn over, be like, all right guys.
And they're like, uh, what's up with that?
Because there was this religiosity that I had to make sure I prayed
before midnight every day.
But here I'm engaging in the moral conversations.
Yeah, I was religious.
And you know what?
Honestly, I have to be careful not to fall victim of that today.
Being a Christian of over 20 plus years, I have to make sure that I
don't look down upon others either in or outside of our fellowship.
Hey, do you study the Bible with people the way I do?
How's your quiet time?
You know, we've seen this in our church, right?
We, we have a lot of great practices, don't we?
But we've also seen how they can become rules on the same level
of same playing field level, playing field as the word of God.
Do you, your quiet time, do you have an hour?
Is it at 6:00 AM every day?
Half hour prayer?
Half hour reading.
Hmm.
Sound kind of worldly to me,
huh?
Do you, you, you don't do that when you have bible studies with people.
Is this guy even a Christian?
We've done this, haven't we?
We have many great practices.
Hey, how did day properly and holy and all these different things are one another.
Relationships.
We have great practices and I'm for all these practices, but the
problem could be or has been, is that they become systematic rules.
And so now you're in violation.
, if you don't follow the rule the same way I follow it again,
all the practice is wrong.
No, nobody's saying that.
But they've now become equal and on par to the word of God.
Wait, that reminds me of some people, uh, the Pharisees.
So maybe, are you perhaps closer to the Pharisees than you think?
I know this week I was convicted of that.
Wow.
That that could be me.
I can fall into that.
But here's the beauty.
Knowing and following the real Jesus frees us from lifeless religiosity, knowing
and following the real Jesus frees us and allows us to now enter a true relationship
with the king of kings, and now live a life of purpose, impact, and authenticity.
This is what the real Jesus enables for you and me.
But religiosity won't do that.
It'll keep us trapped, but fall in the real Jesus authenticity impacts purpose.
and our true identity brother and sisters.
I hope you're with me today.
I'm sorry.
I hope so.
And so here's the call for every one of us here.
It's to be righteous and not religious, to be righteous and not religious.
Well, how do, how can I do that, Marcel?
I'm trying, and I, I believe that.
Here's a little tip I wanna share with everyone.
Can I share these tips here with you?
All right?
If you said no, wouldn't have mattered.
I was still gonna do it anyway.
All right, here we go.
All right.
Here's number one here.
Recognize your legalism.
You say, well, I'm not legalistic.
Let me help you out here.
When we talk about leg being legalistic, it's missing the point of God's command.
That's what being legalistic is.
It's missing the heart of God's command.
And so there's really two ways.
In which we can fall under this trap here.
And so again, I don't want to, uh, trigger any people, but here's
one way, and I just use this cuz we can all, uh, understand this.
There's a conservative way, and that's which you go beyond
God's word and you make it law.
There's God's command, but you go beyond it and now it becomes law.
That's the conservative route.
So for example, like, uh, let's go back to to Judaism.
The, the Bible says clearly don't use God's name in vain.
So guess what?
People decided, you know what, man?
We gotta make sure that we never say God's word in vains.
Do you know what we're gonna do?
We're never gonna say God's name.
So in your bibles, if you have a physical Bible, more than likely, if you go
through the whole Old Testament, when you see the word Lord, it's in all caps.
Why?
Because for years they never say Yahweh.
And so now that's even influenced your very Bible.
. And so even to this day, if you read certain things, they put G
dash d because you can't say God because you don't want to What?
I don't want to say God's name in va, so I just won't say it at all.
And if you say God's name, ooh, you in trouble.
See, that's being legalistic on a conservative route.
You guys get what I'm saying here?
And then there's the liberal route here.
And what is that?
Basically, I can do it as long as it doesn't explicitly say I can't do it.
You all know what I'm talking about.
What does the Bible say?
I shouldn't be vaping and smoking it Sure does it.
So guess what?
I'm choking it up.
Well, you can't tell me The Bible doesn't say that you can't do this.
You're right.
It doesn't say that.
But is that the heart of the command?
You see both of us and many of us, we look at, oh no, I'm not like
that first version, but are you like this second version of legalism?
You see, they're both legalistic.
They wanna make sure it's the letter of the law and not the heart of the law.
You see, Jesus reveals it's about the heart of God's command and not just
the letter of law or adding to it.
And so in many ways, you and I can do this.
Hey, you gotta do it this way.
This is the way our church has always practice it.
And it might be a great practice.
Nothing's wrong with it, but it becomes command.
Or you're on the other side.
Hey, it doesn't say that I can't, so guess what?
Hallelujah.
I'll do it.
You're legalistic.
So here's the key for us to be righteous, is we have to
identify what's our tendency?
Which one do I tend to be like this conservative legalistic or
this liberal legalism church?
Are you with me here?
Yeah.
Because again, the point is to be holy and righteous in God's sake.
Here's a couple quick scriptures that I think could be very
helpful for every one of us.
First one, uh oh man.
I didn't put it on there.
Okay.
All right, here you go.
Write this down.
Ecclesiastes chapter seven verse 18.
Ecclesiastes chapter seven, verse 18.
Here's what it says.
It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other.
Here's the key.
Here's the, here's here's the money right here.
Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes.
Makes sense, right?
If I avoid extreme, then I won't be legalistic.
Then here's another scripture.
Write this down.
First Corinthians chapter 10, verse 23.
I have the right to do anything.
You say.
This is Paul talking to the church and correct.
He says, he quotes here, Hey, there's a saying that's going
around in the community.
I have the right to do anything you say, but not everything is beneficial.
I have the right to do anything, but not everything is constructive.
No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.
So what is this saying?
Yeah, I maybe could do this, but should I do this?
Yeah, you can do a whole lot of stuff, but should you do those things?
Am I missing the heart and command of God with my behavior?
And so again, this allows us to analyze our heart and see are we righteous
from within or are we religious and outdoor appearance and behavior.
So these scriptures can be very helpful for you and I to identify where we
are in our legalism so that we can now aim for the heart of God and we
can be righteous and not religious.
So let's get to some action steps here.
Amen.
Here's the action step.
My kids, uh, man, I, I don't know what's going on with the, the,
the, the formatting here, but anyhow, here's what it says here.
All right.
My kids have had assessment tests, so that word's in my mind here.
Okay.
All right.
So assess where you are currently.
Assess where you are.
Are you more religious right now in your faith, or are you more righteous?
Again, take great pain to be humble and honest, because then God can work.
If we quickly dismiss that, then God can't work and produce the
good he wants to in our lives.
And if there is righteousness, then hallelujah.
Praise God for that.
And continue to be aware of where there's pitfalls in your legalism.
And then even perhaps ask people in your life, Hey, what do you see?
What do you think?
I'm more alike right now, more religious or more righteous.
And again, we love each other, so we'll help each other out.
And then lastly here, here's the prayer I ask you to join with the
rest of us in praying for the church to be righteous and not religious.
This week, we wanna be a people that follow the real Jesus, where
we're righteous and we're not.
Religious and go ahead, write this down.
You can read chapters Lukin eight some point in, in, in the week as well.
Brother Sisters.
Our aim is to see a revival in the cause of Jesus where we know,
follow and show the real Jesus.
And last week we learned the real Jesus is powerful.
This week we see the real Jesus is not religious, but he's righteous and
his followers too should therefore be righteous and not religious.
And so I praise God and I pray to every single one of us that we'll know.
We'll follow.
We'll show the real Jesus, and we too will be righteous and not religious.
Brother, sister, love you.
Thank you.
Amen.