Jesus on Religion
About this series
Jesus was God-in-flesh. He was (and is) the purest, most loving and truth-filled human being the world has ever known. And yet what he taught, how he lived and the kingdom he inaugurated directly confronted the human culture in which he spent his years on earth. He was truly counter-cultural. And he is no less counter-cultural in every part of the world today.
To follow Jesus is to embark on a lifelong journey of counter-cultural transformation in which we can expect that being a disciple will lead us towards challenge, temptation and costly decisions at every turn. It’s to this that he calls every single person who follows him.
It’s a lifestyle:
That requires obedience to him above all else.
That will lead us into conflict with the world, the flesh and the devil.
That witnesses to the world of his greatness.
The goal of the first series this year - Just Jesus - was to spend time specifically focussed on the person and work of Jesus. And the goal this time is again to look at Jesus - how he was (and is) counter-cultural. So we’ll be speaking about Jesus - showing how his teaching and actions were counter-cultural in his day and then applying it to our day.
About this talk
Matthew 6:1-18
Craig Blomberg: ‘The vast majority of Jews in Israel were not aligned with any special group…The special groups probably comprise no more than five percent of the population.’ But that five percent - the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes and the Zealots - feature disproportionately in the gospels because it was they who were the religious authorities with whom Jesus clashed.
So when he calls out these hypocrites in Matthew 6 he is quite likely referring to the religious elites, especially as it was they who set the religious tone of that day. And what he highlights is their motive for performing these three acts - “to be honoured by others”; “to be seen by others”; and “to show others”. Well, they’ve chosen their audience and their only reward will be from that audience. It is interesting that rather than dismissing the abused practices of Matthew 6:1-18 he reinforces a right use of them. Jesus says that your Father will reward you when you give, pray and fast without announcement but with humility and faith.
In addition, the religious leaders in Judaism invented all manner of minor commands to ensure people didn’t come close to breaking the major commands. And here Jesus tackles those who abuse good, God-commanded practices - giving to the needy, prayer and fasting - to promote their self-image and standing in the religious community. This is what hypocrites - those who present a false impression of who they really are - commonly do. And Jesus will have none of it, instead frequently commending those who come to God humbly and who know their need for mercy.
While the New Testament uses the term ‘religion’ positively, what is meant in this title - Jesus on Religion - are those man-made practices that attempt to control people’s way of relating with God that has nothing to do with the heart of his commands.
In Jesus’ day
Many of the Jews Jesus clashed with were, in many ways, pious, God-fearing and seeking to be obedient. But their approach to God descended into a performance-based religion. Obeying laws while missing the intent of them; obeying the minor laws at the expense of the greater ones; maintaining purity while lacking love and compassion for the unclean; being one thing externally but another internally.
In our day
The instinct to trust our own work rather than Jesus’ work is alive and well today in the many religions of the world. Every other belief system is based, one way or another, on reassuring the person that their ‘good works’ will bring them favour. And sadly, such thinking is not uncommon in the church too. The counter-cultural way of Jesus, in stark contrast, says that the only way to receive his favour is to humbly admit our poverty, nakedness and utter lack of credentials.
The church is at her best and shines most brightly in an instinctively religious world, when she remembers that Jesus offers grace to those who recognise their need of him rather than in their ability to please him. ‘Christianity is the unreligion. It turns all our religious instincts on their head’ (Dane Ortlund).
Audio only
