Self-Righteous Cows

Last week, we talked at length about how in the world we’re supposed to reconcile the Bible with science. We discussed this in light of understanding the purposes of the Bible and its application towards one area of life—that area being the knowing of who God is and why Jesus Christ had to die for us. Unfortunately, we spoke about how some people inside and outside of the church make the antiquity of the translation of the Bible, the laws, stories and customs sacred cows that are lifted above things that the Bible never intended to cover. Therefore by using Scripture to justify injustice, prejudice and godless domination, along with unfair misogyny and misdirected laws. I’m not going to recap what we talked about. You’re going to have to catch it on iTunes. This morning, I sort of build on what we covered in that first week to tackle another issue that surprises lots of people when I tell them my views on the matter. When I originally started writing this sermon and thinking about the underpinnings of it—I thought it would be addressing the abortion topic that Rick Santorum has made his base campaign and the gay campaign that Newt Gingrich has seriously demonized. But in prayer and serious reflection, I realized the problem isn’t some broken views on aborters or gay people or even a matter of racism or discrimination. This is a matter way bigger than those things. This is a matter of “self-righteousness.” Don’t get me wrong. I am a passive aggressive, self righteous pig! I will be the first to tell you that you were wrong when I’m right. And in my heart, God condemned me this week to the point where I hated myself for being such an arrogant dumb face. There are no other words that can possibly describe it. This is not in your notes, but I want to read a little bit from the letter to the Galatians, probably one of my most favorite books in the Bible. Galatians 1:13-16. 13 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. This is Paul writing to an entire nation. He is basically saying, I loved the law of God so much because I memorized the first five books of the Bible and I was basically going to be the godfather of the Jews that I got a letter authorizing me to break the law of God that I love to make sure that it lives on. Now, if you don’t know where I’m going it’s simple. This guy was a prodigy. He was the best. He was like the Steve Jobs of Judaism in first century Palestine. The reason I’m telling you guys this is for background information. The background information we have to know is simple: we form sacred cows in our lives—that is, we hold to these traditions at the cost of our traditions for the sake of traditions—more simply, we don’t take the time to think about why we’re doing the things we’re doing sometimes and when we do those things, it is detrimental and hypocritical to both the inside and outside of the religious community. It is a shameful embarrassment. So we get to a point in our religiousness where we, just like Paul coin the phrase “hate the sin and love the sinner.” That’s what Paul was doing. He was killing the sin by killing the sinner! We are all guilty of some type of some ungodly persecution. You can say no, but we know you are. Here’s how people usually approach this “hate the sin and love the sinner” bit. The political people talk behind people’s backs and say, “how can they be messed up, I’m glad I’m not like that” and then they promulgate the rumor by telling other people, “aren’t you glad we’re not like that guy.” Then there’s the more passive-aggressive approach, just gives you the eyes of judgment—the “I’m better than those people, you immoral peasant” look. Then they begin to speak over you, like they’re some moral royalty. Then there’s the Jonathan type of approach which is probably the most disgusting because it’s the most direct. You get the “I’m so sorry eyes.” Then depending on how broken you are feeling and how much of Jonathan’s EQ is running, you get “You know what, it’s not the end of the world, we’re going to get through this together with God’s help.” Or if Jonathan is feeling like an insensitive person (which most people think is like 99% of the time and he does little to care about how he’s perceived) you get the, “it’s life, you want to deal with it because I got 99 of my own problems and I can’t waste time with your nails breaking.” Yeah, that’s all forms of persecution and what the heck does that have to do with hating the sin and loving the sinner. We need to go to Romans 1. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. Paul is talking about why people worship other gods. Paul is basically setting up a logical flow of why people sin instead of living perfectly. The argument here is that people wanted a god that they can mold and control and make wishes upon. Human nature, Paul was saying, compels us to want something we can grasp and lord over. This is basically how I keep telling you guys not to put God in a box. The reason is because God will let you believe whatever you want to believe—He isn’t going to force you; however, He does provide information—for us in the 21st century, and this goes back to last week, is in the Bible—it’s the only thing that cannot be added or subtracted to that gets to the heart of how we approach God. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. I want to stop here for a second. The reason I want to stop here is because this is where most Christians stop reading. Christians, most of whom are well meaning and good people stop reading here! It’s a freaking embarrassment. They read verse 26, “for this reason God gave them up…” then they read verse 27 and say that’s why gay people got AIDS. That’s ridiculous. So I want us to stop here for a second and don’t sound bite me for the purposes of putting me in a box. But I’m one of those pastors that don’t really care about the politics of gay and lesbian marriage. Here’s the reason—it’s because their sin is no different than my own sin. That’s right, what does it matter if you are gay or straight? It doesn’t matter because in the eyes of God before Jesus, you are a sinner all equally deserving of death. Some people are going to have a stroke hearing me say that. Verse 28, let’s keep reading. I want you to write this down when we judge the Bible for what it is talking about—when in doubt, keep reading! 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. – Romans 1:21-32 Paul is basically saying one thing here—you can’t go condemn gay people for being sinners. The reason you can’t is because you are a sinner too, no difference, just variations to the expression of it! By a show of hands in the room, anybody here today a liar? What about thief? Nobody? Just me? I want to kind of hit you in the cheek—has anybody lied before? Has anybody taken something that doesn’t belong to them? Pen, homework, girlfriend, boyfriend, etc. Yo, you’re a liar not because you do it all the time, but you’re a liar because you lie. You’re a thief because you steal. You are a sinner, as I am a sinner. We are the worst type of sinners too, us Christians, because we know we should not sin because we are saved from it, but we can’t freaking help it, so we continue to displease God with our sin and then we have the audacity to condemn other peoples sinning through our persecution of sins that we don’t necessarily and regularly commit. How shameful! We always do this. We want to justify ourselves as religious people and we take the Bible piecemeal and make judgment calls that we couldn’t stand under if the scrutiny came down upon us. At the end of the day, without Jesus, we all go to hell. Let’s stop condemning our brothers and sisters to hell. That’s un-Christ like. It’s freaking stupid. I know I keep using the gay and lesbian example, but stop persecuting them, if you do. Same thing with people who get abortions—why the hell are we demonizing them? For some reason, it’s okay if people don’t go to church, but if they are gay or if they had an abortion, then their lives are forsaken. How about I tell you that it’s not okay that people don’t come to church and that the people who should be coming are the outcasts of society? So I know when I say that, this opens the door for moral relativism here in the 21st century and I know that’s what the fundamentalist pundits have against me. It’s funny, I’m labeled fundamentalist Christian by the hippie liberal Christians who think the virgin mary isn’t a virgin—but they don’t understand that the word virgin actually means virgin—okay, sorry, that was a bad aside. But then the conservatives who label me liberal because I don’t want to just love the sinner and hate the sin, but I want to love the sinner in the sins they commit as God loved us in the sins we committed against him through Jesus, they ask how then do we deal with that and this is the passage they quote. 1st Corinthians 6. 9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 12“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything” but I will not be mastered by anything. – 1 Corinthians 6:9-12 I want you to underline the phrase, “the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God” I know there is a question mark there but it’s really a statement. We were all once unrighteous. Let’s not forget that. We were all at one point before we accepted Christ as our savior, unrighteous! Here’s what is described as the “unrighteous”—you can simply write in your notes—breaking the 1st commandment out of the 10 commandments. Can we stop here at verse 12. This is really important for our study. You guys know how I don’t enforce much guilt tripping or moral haggling. It’s because of this verse. I don’t give advice mostly because I don’t have the time to micromanage your lives but because I don’t think a lot of things are a big deal or of moral significance. Like I have never once said, don’t do drugs for the sake of don’t do drugs. I never tell you people not to smoke and I definitely never say don’t drink. You will hear me say don’t do drugs because you’ll go to jail when you’re caught. Or don’t smoke because you’re going to be more physically unfit than you already are. Or I’ll say don’t drink and drive. But I couldn’t care less. I do say things like no ring, no sex—but that’s because you young people are disillusioned with passion and I can’t afford having wedlock babies showing up in woodbridge because you and the kid got kicked out of your house and I’ve been down that road before, you’re not missing much and it messes you up psychologically and I don’t want to do anymore counseling. So here’s how we tackle relative moralism and how we tackle what we believe to be right or wrong in our lives. If it is beneficial, then that’s morally good. I don’t mean beneficial in the financial sense. Like I don’t want you to go kill somebody because it’ll be beneficial for your business. I’m talking about beneficial for the sanctification of your Spirit—is it going to make you more like Jesus Christ. If it is, that’s morally great and good. If that questionable morality is not beneficial to make you Christ-like, the answer is, well, go for it, but what’s really the point? It doesn’t add anything. Then we take it one step further and say, well, it doesn’t add any value to my life, but will it consume me? For example, if your family has a history of alcoholism, then really, you should reconsider drinking because drinking on it’s own is not morally a hazard because it does not do anything beneficial for our faith, but it can consume you. Yeah, I know two bouts in AA and counting and you can use this for every decision you need to make. I have to bring it back full circle because both things we just talked about are sacred cows in our church. 1st Corinthians 8. 9 Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? 11 So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. 12 When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall. – 1 Corinthians 8:9-13 Either way you look at it, the real danger and problem of this whole mess; whether we make relativity our sacred cow or self-righteousness our cow, it comes down to whether we’re causing other people to spiral into sin because our influence over them. Verse 12 and 13 emphasize it. The Christian life is to be modeled and flexible enough to accommodate the weak, not the strong. So if you want to avoid making morality sacred for the sake of morality, you have to think about those people around you who may be grossly and unjustly impacted by your proclamations. Paul says “19Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” Here’s the last bit before I close. 17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. 19 Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 20 You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. – Deuteronomy 10:17-20 I want you to write next to verse 18—I was once these things, I am these things. Open your minds and let’s do a mental experiment for a second. The fatherless and widows, this is significant because the father of your house provides and protects. We all need protection and provisions. We are all journeying (wandering) through life and need food and clothing. God wants a relationship from us. But his relationship to us does not hinge on reciprocity, it hinges on us on receiving and accepting. Don’t get on a self-righteous high horse because we are disillusioned to be self sufficient. We are needy beyond belief. We need to love our sinners and the sins they bring to the table. We need to love their problems and their issues. We can’t box them out and not work with them because their problems are weak and pathetic. Absolutely not. We need God and so do the people we condemn. We knocked down this sacred cow. Let’s do it going on into the future. Over the next few weeks I want us to start thinking about what this room would look like if we were able to bring people who don’t fit the billing of Christians into community with us. Would their lives change? Would our lives change? What amazing things would God be doing here? How much fun would it be? How amazing would the miracles? I want you to prepare your hearts and start dreaming of what we can do together to make this place the reality of redemption for all!