Churchianity

Perhaps others of you, it will be on the heels of some crisis, some confrontation, some crossroads, some decisions, some difficulty or trial and you will turn your back on God and you will admit to everyone and even to yourself you really don't care anymore of having any relationship with a holy and loving God. You will reveal to the world that you were involved in churchianity but not true Christianity. You were religious but unredeemed.

Are you living a lie or are you truly alive? Have you ever met someone who seemed as if attending church is what makes you saved? Many believe religious activity guarantees a relationship with God but scripture warns otherwise. In today's message, Stephen Davey unpacks the danger of churchianity, a shallow appearance focused religion that falls short of true faith. Learn how Paul's letter to the Romans confronts religious hypocrisy revealing the difference between outward religion and genuine redemption. This message challenges you to examine your own heart.

Are you living a life transformed by Christ or simply going through the motions? In the Gospel by Mark, the Lord told the parable about the sowing of the Gospel seed. He revealed four different kinds of reception to the Gospel. From an outward appearance, all of the soils basically looked the same but only in one case was the soil receptive. Probably know the parable on one hand, the soil was hardened and the Gospel could not penetrate. In another case, the soil was also filled with the seeds of thorns and thistles and they grew up with the seed and choked it out. In still another case, the seed went into shallow soil and the seed took root and sprung up and everything looked good.

The soil looked rich and capable but under the surface of the soil were rocks and the roots grew down only so far until they ran out of nourishment and the plant died off. So you have the hardened heart, you have the crowded heart, you have the insincere heart, all our hearts that are not open ultimately to the Gospel although they all treated the Gospel somewhat differently. And some as in the case of the insincere heart seem to accept it, seem to believe it, seem to trust in it but ultimately the appearance of good soil eroded away and it exposed the unbelief and the rocky hardness of unbelief underneath. I tend to think of the depth of the soil in that parable in terms of time. In other words, there are some who accept the seed of the Gospel and they seem to be good soil but it only lasts for six months or maybe six years or perhaps even 16 years but eventually the inch or two deep soil is eroded away and leaving the truth, the reality of an unconverted heart.

Sometimes the reality of thin soil and not capable of handling the seed and its fruit is revealed through some tragedy, perhaps some crisis, perhaps some turn of a financial event or some change in health. Maybe it's a personal challenge to their way of life and they turn on their heels and they walk away from Christ and they walk away from the Church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. They ultimately reject the Gospel and they reveal their unconverted heart and you have heard them perhaps say, yeah I used to believe that and I used to cotton to that and I don't anymore. Sometimes it happens soon after the person prays what we call the sinner's prayer. They pray and it seems to be genuine. It seems to be true but over time that soil erodes away and it leaves the fact, the reality that there wasn't true redemption.

I meet them all the time. Yeah, I prayed that prayer. I believed that when I was a kid. I used to believe in Jesus. I used to go to church. I even baptized but now I don't believe any of that anymore.

Ten years perhaps, two years, five minutes and the soil is washed away revealing the rocky stony heart of unbelief. They had only prayed the sinner's prayer because perhaps of some benefit of a sad conscience or they had prayed for salvation so they could simply add God to their list of insurances. They had auto insurance and fire insurance and disability insurance and medical insurance and now they had eternal insurance. And many of them perhaps even today still go to church. Maybe there are those here today like that but if you look under the surface you discover that church for them is simply one more way of looking morally good. It's simply another place to pass around business cards, meet potential clients, a way to enhance their personal reputation, the way to salve their conscience and make them feel better about themselves and spiritual activity is nothing more than a way of self-promotion.

It is simply religious words attached to selfishness. Just as Paul has condemned the immoral man in chapter one and just as he has condemned the moral man in chapter two, now he has begun to condemn the religious man and with him the shallow systems of religion that look good, look righteous, say the right words. They have the rituals, they have the creeds, the candles, the water, the smoke, the prayer mats, the prayer wheels, the temples and the cathedrals. The only thing the religions of this world can do is as we looked at in our last discussion is whitewash gravestones. Jesus Christ said to the religionists of his day, you have whitewashed the gravestone but underneath there is death. You look good, you look clean but you represent all that is dead. The only thing that religion can do is put makeup on a corpse.

It might look alive but it's dead. There wasn't anyone more religious in Paul's day, anyone that looked more alive than the faithful Jew and they knew it. They thought if anybody could gain the pleasure of God it would have been them. If anybody had the safety of paradise awaiting them it would be the Jew, the faithful Jew. I believe there are thousands if not millions of Americans who today feel they are safe before God.

Why? Because they do the same thing that we talked about, the six things that the Jews claimed feeling safe before God. They bore the special name of Jew.

Today we bear the special name of Christian. Number two because of his dedication to the law. Three because of his respect for God. Four because of his special knowledge.

Five because of his keen insight into what was essential. And finally because of his biblical education he said, you have been instructed. The Greek word is katakoumenos which we transliterate and get our English word catechized or catechism. You have been catechized in religion he says and you are on your way in effect to hell. The faithful Jew felt safe before God because of all of the above. They knew the creeds, they knew the verses, they knew the law, they knew the name of the one and only true living God. They were sincerely religious and committed to their religion and at the same time they were unredeemed.

I wonder how many people today feel that because they bear the name Christian because of their dedication to the law, because of their respect for God, because of their special knowledge and insight of God's will, because of their basic catechism in the Word of God. They know the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. They've heard of Noah, they know of Elijah, they know there's a heaven, they know there's a hell. They can even quote perhaps some of John chapter 3 verse 16. They are sincerely religious and unredeemed.

That's not all. The guilt of the faithful Jew was compounded further with what Paul will now reveal in chapter 2. He revealed first of all those six reasons why they felt safe before God, eternally safe before God, but now four reasons he will give why the faithful Jew felt entirely superior before men. The text says in verse 19 of Romans chapter 2, you are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind. The first reason the Jew felt superior was that he considered himself to be a spiritual supervisor. They had the attitude of what could God do without us?

We are indispensable in all of humanity. Those poor Gentiles will never make it unless they have us guiding them and leading them. They will miss the path. We are the guide to the blind. Jesus Christ will tell them they are, in effect, blind guides. In Matthew 15, 14, Jesus said to the religious leaders, they are blind guides of the blind.

And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit. In Matthew 23, 16, the Lord again said to the Pharisee, go to you blind guides. Verse 17, you fools and blind men. Verse 19, you blind men. Verse 26, you blind Pharisee.

First clean the inside of the cup and of the dish so that the outside of it may become clean also. By the way, Paul says the same thing about the religions of this world today when he writes in 2 Corinthians 4, for the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. It is the nature of the enemy. It is the nature of religion to do what? To assume, to presume, to seem, to lead the blind, but they themselves are blind. They would claim to be enlightened, but they cannot see spiritual truth.

That leads me to the second thought and the irony of it. The Jew not only felt himself superior before men because he believed that he was the supervisor spiritually, but he also believed he was the source of enlightenment. The text says you're confident that you're a guide to the blind and the light, to those who are in darkness. Now it is true that God designed the Jewish nation to be the light in the world. The Jewish nation by God's design gave the world the prophets, gave the world the book of Psalms or songs. Through the Jewish nation we were given the Messiah, born of a Jewish virgin girl. Through the nation God had promised that Israel in Isaiah 42 6 would be a light to the Gentiles. They would be given the law, the Torah, they would be given the truth from God that they were to share with the world. Yet the nation then rejected the Messiah who came and announced that he was the light of the world. Here is true enlightenment. Here is the fulfillment of the law and the nation rejected him.

The third reason the faithful Jew felt superior was because he considered himself to be the standard of morality. In verse 20 we're given the phrase, you also are confident then that you are a, verse 20, a corrector of the foolish. Now the word corrector here in the text has within it the idea of one who draws the boundaries, one who draws the lines. I was over here yesterday before the soccer tournament, driving off two of my kids who were going to help and for a few minutes I watched one of the guys pushing that little contraption with a wheel that laid down the chalk and drew the boundaries and straight white lines. You don't have to know anything about soccer to know that everything has to happen within those white lines. And if the ball ever goes out of bounds it's up to the referee to blow the whistle and determine by whom it went out and which team gets the throw in and that referee then will call the shots. He will literally correct those who go out of bounds. The faithful Jew was saying in effect, I am the one who blows the whistle. I am the referee.

I have drawn the lines and I determine where everybody plays and if anybody crosses what I consider to be the line I'll blow the whistle and call them out of bounds. They considered themselves to sort of be the moral policemen of the world and we'll see in a moment that they had failed to police themselves. The fourth reason the faithful Jew felt superior was because he considered himself to be the spring of wisdom. Paul writes you, you are confident that you are a guide to the blind.

You are a light to those who are in darkness. You are a corrector of the foolish and now you are a teacher of the immature having in the law the Torah the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth. You consider yourself to be a teacher of the immature. Now the word immature here refers to the Gentile who is converted to Judaism. What we refer to is a Gentile proselyte. The New Testament talks about in the book of Acts God fearing Gentiles. These were Gentiles that left their idolatry and were proselytes to Judaism. They went through circumcision and they began to worship the God of Israel and they needed teaching of course. The Gentiles knew nothing of Judaism. They didn't know anything about the Torah the law of God. The trouble was the Jewish leaders were teaching their traditions as doctrines. They were bringing in the proselyte and they were introducing them to ritual instead of a relationship with a holy and loving God. So the Gentile proselyte the immature one was worse off than before. Jesus Christ said the very thing in Matthew 23 15 when he said woe to you scribes and Pharisees because you travel about on sea and land to make one proselyte and when he becomes one you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. You imagine that kind of preaching back then?

Can you imagine it today? His harshest words were for the religionists of his day. I couldn't help but think of how many people in this country today consider themselves to be superior to the rest of the world because they know the truth about the Bible. They know the law of God. They teach a Sunday school class.

They're concerned over the waywardness of the world. They know the standards of morality but they do not know God. Religious but unredeemed. You say well how do I know if I've been deceived? How do I examine my faith to see if I'm truly redeemed? Well in the next few verses the Apostle Paul will take the broom of scripture and he will brush away what seems to be good soil and will reveal underneath the rocky soil of unbelief.

He will provide five questions that will confront their and our sense of safety and security. Five questions that will reveal the truth of good soil and good seed which bears good fruit or the utter lack thereof. The first question in verse 21 asks you therefore who teach another do you not teach yourself? In other words the faithful Jew knew the truth and taught the truth of the law but had not applied number one the truth to his own life. Their religious creed had not produced righteous conduct.

What they said they believed had no effect on how they behaved. Now Paul when he asks this question you need to understand when he asked the question you therefore who teach another do you not teach yourself he is expecting them to say something like what do you mean we don't teach ourselves? What do you mean we don't apply the law to ourselves?

Haven't you been watching us? We wash our hands ceremonially before we eat. We refrain from working on the Sabbath. We won't even take a chair from one room to the next because that would be working on the Sabbath day.

We won't walk 20 yards past our front door. That would be journeying on the seventh day. We keep all of the festivals and the feast.

We never miss a sacrifice. We fast and we pray and we give alms to the poor. What do you mean we don't apply the truth to our lives? And Paul says in effect well I'm glad you asked for specifics because he goes on to give them. Verse 21, the middle part, you who preach that one should not steal, do you steal? Now you notice Paul under the brilliance of the Holy Spirit is not calling them outright thieves. They probably close the book and walk away. He's simply asking them are you a thief?

He's asking a rhetorical question expecting them to have their consciences provoked. Do you steal? Now the Lord Jesus had already condemned the religionists of his day for turning his father's house into a den of what? Thieves instead of it being a house of prayer.

Do you claim to know Christ today? Do you claim the name of Christian and at the same time do you steal? What about the workaday world of business? According to one study by the American Management Association, U.S. businesses annually lose over 10 billion to employee pilferage. Everything from staples to stamps to software products to long distance telephone calls to falsified business expense reports. Ten billion do you steal? Over four billion a year to embezzlement. Over two point four billion to burglary. Over two billion businesses lose that to shoplifting. Over one point three billion to arson for the sake of insurance.

Over five hundred thousand per incident of computer fraud. The distinction Paul would say then between a religious person and a true believer, the difference between churchianity and Christianity, Paul seems to believe and he wrote under the influence of the Holy Spirit who seemed to believe it of course is honesty, integrity. You don't steal. An unbeliever may tell a lie to get his way. A believer tells the truth even though he won't get his way. It's one of the marks of true conversion. The religious man first of all has not applied the truth to his own life. Secondly he has not evidenced the quality of honesty. Paul goes on in verse 22 to ask you who say that one should not commit adultery do you commit adultery?

So the third point would be this. The religious man will talk about how sexual sin is wrong and isn't our society corrupt but he will not have purified his own heart. Do you commit adultery? Paul wrote to the Ephesian believers in Chapter 4 verse 17, So this I say and affirm together with the Lord that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind. That is they are deceived in their mind being darkened in their understanding excluded from the life of God. They think they're spiritually alive but they're not. Because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their heart and they having become callous have given themselves over to what? To sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

But you did not learn Christ in this way if indeed you've heard him and you've been taught in him just as truth is in Jesus that in reference to your former manner of life you lay aside the old self which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit. In other words one of the chief characteristics of the unbelieving world is its utter abandonment to sexual license and sexual activity and fulfillment outside the bonds of marriage. The world revolves around sensuality.

The world revolves around the physical. You've seen it as much as I have in fact it desensitizes us to the fact that everything from automobiles to soft drink cells by somehow first attracting people to some form of sensual or sexual benefit. Well the Bible calls relations involving a married individual with someone other than their spouse adultery. Not a fling, not a passing affair, not a self-fulfilling relationship, not a midlife crisis, adultery.

The Bible calls sexual sin between two people who are unmarried fornication not experimentation, not a rite of passage for young people, not something that's all right if you're going to marry, fornication. Jay Allen Peterson wrote a book several years ago and he wrote these words, a call for sexual integrity and fidelity is like a solitary voice today crying in the wilderness. What once carried a stigma of guilt and embarrassment is now called an affair, a nice sounding almost inviting word wrapped in mystery and excitement. What was once behind the scenes is now in the headlines. It is now a movie theme. It is now a bestseller.

It has now become as common as the cold. If the religious leaders had said to Paul I have never committed that act he would have reminded them of what Jesus Christ had earlier said in Matthew 5 28. Everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. You see it's an issue of the heart.

It is a matter of the heart. He suggests there that there's a line that you cross between a look and the fantasy of the heart to sin. One author wrote we could define the line between temptation which is not sin and lust which is sin this way. Lust is the desire that conceives a plan to possess.

When a look turns into desire you've crossed the line. Adultery in the heart is lust that mentally engages in fantasy. Adultery in the flesh is lust that carries out the fantasy. And would you catch this? In Romans chapter 2 Paul is basically asking the respectable synagogue going moral upstanding religious faithful Jewish person and leader of his day.

Have you committed the sin of lusting and scheming about sexual relations with someone other than your spouse in your heart or have you even taken the steps and physically committed the act? It is a question that was asked in the first century. It is a question that needs to be asked in the 21st century. And I attached to the question the thought that it is a distinguishing mark of those who may be religious and those who are truly redeemed. In terms of evaluating true conversion it is tragic that today the same statistics of immorality exist within the churches outside the church.

Is there spiritual deception? It would be this principle one of the greatest evidences of true conversion is a passion for purity. Doesn't mean you don't fail but there is a passion, there is a lifestyle, there is a practice of holy living. So much so that even the thought, even that lust in the heart brings you to confession, brings you to agony, brings you before God in guilt and remorse and true repentance.

Do you commit adultery? Paul goes on to say or ask in the last part of verse 22, have you chosen God over money? He says it this way, you who abhor idols do you rob temples.

It's a very difficult expression to understand. There are a number of interpretations I'll save you those for the sake of time but I personally believe insight into what Paul means here is provided by two things. The first is a verse from Deuteronomy.

Let me just read it to you for the sake of time. God is warning by the way the Israelite about the gold and silver God's made by the idolatrous nations around them. God commands this, the graven images of their gods you are to burn with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them nor take it for yourselves or you will be snared by it for it is an abomination to the Lord your God. In other words while the Israelite would never consider bowing down before gold and silver idol they would love to get their hands on the gold and melt it down but to touch the idol according to the law would be a defiling act so they were to keep their hands off them. The second thing that I think gives insight into this comment was made by Josephus a first century Jewish historian who wrote these words quote let no one blaspheme those gods which other cities esteem nor may anyone steal. Here's the interesting insight.

Nor may anyone steal what belongs to strange temples nor take away the gifts that are dedicated to any god. What I believe was happening was twofold. First the Jewish people were using idols for material purposes even though it was defiling them. They were either melting down the gold and the silver and using it for their own bank account.

It was a defiling association. Secondly they were trafficking in stolen goods. They would have people stealing from the idols those things or the temples those things given to idols and they would traffic in this black market. It was commerce over character. It was money being more important than their holy living before God. One of the marks by the way of the unbeliever is that whenever the choice has to be made between money or God career or character business or faith money business and career usually win. Commerce greed and materialism are the true marks of the unbelievers unconverted selfish stony heart. So today shall we get practical take a look sometime at your checkbook how much have you given to Christ and his worldwide mission and how much have you kept for yourself. It's easy to be self deceived.

Look at the facts. Your answers may be a revelation that the soil in your life may be only an inch deep. It's good looking. It looks religious. It sounds religious but one day it will erode away. Maybe today is the moment where you will leave this place and say I've had enough and I'll live my life out now in unbelief. Perhaps others of you it'll be on the heels of some crisis some confrontation some crossroads some decisions some difficulty or trial and you will turn your back on God and you will admit to everyone and even to yourself you really don't care anymore of having any relationship with a holy and loving God. You will reveal to the world that you were involved in churchianity but not true Christianity. You were religious but unredeemed. On the road that leads to hell you say Stephen are you trying to get me to question the sincerity of my faith?

Yes. Are you trying to get me to question the reality of my salvation? For the Apostle Paul himself said we should examine ourselves to see if we are truly in the faith.

Second Corinthians 13 5 and that's exactly what he's doing here in Romans 2. He's doing it to the religious world of his day. He is challenging them ladies and gentlemen to answer the most important question they will ever have to answer. He is asking them are you living a lie or are you truly alive?

That was Stephen Davey and this is Wisdom for the Heart. Today's message is called Churchianity. If you haven't already signed up for Friends of Wisdom I'd love to invite you to do so today. It's a completely free membership designed to encourage you in your walk with Christ. Each week you'll receive an email from Stephen filled with biblical encouragement answers to pressing Bible questions and insights on living wisely in today's world but that's just the beginning. As a Friend of Wisdom member you'll also receive a free resource each month carefully chosen to help you grow in your understanding of scripture. These resources that we send are designed to deepen your faith and equip you with wisdom for daily living. Now signing up is simple and free. Just visit wisdomonline.org forward slash friends that's wisdomonline.org forward slash friends. You'll fill out a short form and you'll be all set and as a special thank you we'll send you two free digital booklets right away. Join us back here next time on Wisdom for the Heart. you