As was often the case, when Jesus worked a miracle there were some who did not approve. The fact that Jesus did this miracle on the Jewish Sabbath provoked a confrontation with those Jews who had become entangled in legalism. Their focus on the letter of the law and the centuries of tradition in how the law had been applied to life blinded them to the spirit of the law and the work of God in their midst. As people we tend to swing between the extremes of legalism and lawlessness, which is a fierce independence from the law - an attitude of rebellion which says "No-one can tell me what to do!". The Bible urges us to choose freedom instead - freedom from the burden of legalism and freedom from the corruption of lawlessness. Freedom that is only found in Jesus and experienced by living by the Spirit in accordance with His Word in fellowship with His People.
Introduction
Last week we discovered 2 great principles that are contained in the story of the healing at Bethesda pool. The first was found in Jesus’ statement: “Do you want to get well?”. We reflected on the fact that there are things in all of our lives that are not well. There are areas of sickness or of weakness that need God’s healing touch. He desires to heal us, but the real issue is whether or not we want to be healed. We often apply this principle straight away to the area of physical healing, and sometimes people are even accused of limiting God’s healing power through their own doubt or lack of faith or special knowledge or some sin that prohibits God from performing a physical healing. I don’t believe the Bible supports that view in any way. That’s a separate study which I’m happy to talk to people about later. I believe the Bible clearly demonstrates that God’s priority in working His healing power in our lives places the greatest emphasis on spiritual healing – I’m not using that term in the same way that many in our society do, I’m talking about a healing of the relationship between God and us through faith in Jesus Christ which brings about reconciliation, adoption into God’s family, the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit and the journey of learning to walk in step with the Spirit until the time of our glorification when we will finally be united with God the Father, Son and Spirit, and will live with Him forever. Spiritual healing is God’s number one priority, and both the Old and New Testaments describe how He has often and will often use physical chastening – including sickness and suffering – to bring about this more important healing in the area of our spiritual life.
The Bible also clearly talks about God’s priority to heal our social relationships – our relationships with people, whether that is in our earthly families, our friends, our colleagues, our Church family, our enemies and so on. God wants to bring about right relationship between people.
Another great priority for God is healing in the area of our moral character. He wants us to be people who do what is right. He wants us to be pure and holy. This goes together with our spiritual and our social life. You can’t have right relationship with God or with people without a personal commitment to do what is right.
We could go on talking about the many areas of our lives: our thought life, our emotions, our finances, our circumstances and so on. Jesus said in John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Jesus wants to bring you to a point of full and unhindered life. He wants to heal the things that are not well in each and every part of our lives, but His priorities in doing so are not the same as what we might prescript for ourselves. We might think “I’d rather have a healthy body and a selfish heart”. I suspect that Jesus would say “I’d rather you have a weakened body and heart full of love and wisdom and thankfulness. That’s going to do a lot more good and bring me a lot more glory than just another person who’s healthy on the outside but rotten on the inside”.
We’ve got to answer the question “Do you want to get well”, because Jesus wants all of us to get well. He’s got healing work to do in you and in me if we will let him. None of us are perfect, so what does Jesus want to heal in you today? Will you let him?
The second statement was “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk”. Having accepted Jesus’ offer of healing, the man now had to obey. Jesus is Saviour and He is Lord. If we want His saving power we must also want His rightful lordship over us. We must choose obedience as a core attitude in our lives. “Whatever you say Lord, I will do”. If you can’t say that you are not treating Jesus as Lord but as something far less. We need to search out His commands and put them into practice, then we will see the healing power of Christ at work in our lives. The man didn’t know he could walk until he got up and walked. How often do the commands of Jesus seem to difficult for us, and we settle for disobedience instead? “Yes I know the Bible says to do this but I’ve got all these problems – it’s too much for me!” If Jesus is Lord you will do what He says, and trust Him for the power to carry it out.
Today we are going to continue in the story, and we’ll discover two more key statements that are going to really challenge us.
The man by the pool has been healed after 38 years spent crippled by sickness or injury. He rises, takes up his mat and leaves the area in which he has been a virtual prisoner. The pool of Bethesda was near the sheep gate in Jerusalem, adjoining the Temple area. It’s quite likely that as he walked away carrying his mat that he would have passed by many devout Jews and their religious leaders.
From John 5:9b - 16
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”
12 So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him.
The third key point in this story is found in the statement of the Jews in verse 10…
3. “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
There are two things that upset these particular Jews – these were probably religious leaders who were present around the temple area. The first is that this man is carrying a mat on the Sabbath.
Exodus 31 records God’s command to Moses that anyone who does any work on the Sabbath should be put to death! (Ex. 31:14)
In Jeremiah 17 we read…
19 This is what the LORD said to me: “Go and stand at the gate of the people, through which the kings of Judah go in and out; stand also at all the other gates of Jerusalem. 20 Say to them, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and all people of Judah and everyone living in Jerusalem who come through these gates. 21 This is what the LORD says: Be careful not to carry a load on the Sabbath day or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem. 22 Do not bring a load out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your forefathers.
Imagine seeing someone coming in through the gates of Jerusalem carrying what you consider to be a load, in defiance of God’s law. If you are zealous for the law of God, you are going to be concerned by that!
So these Jews confront the man about his behaviour. He’s in trouble, so like most men since the time of Adam, he quickly shifts the blame! “I was told to do it by the guy who healed me” he says.
“Who is this guy?” they ask, but the man can’t tell them because Jesus has slipped away.
We very often condemn the Jewish religious leaders and teachers because of their strict adherence to centuries of tradition which seemed more important to them than the Scriptures themselves. Certainly, the thinking of these particular Jews as to what constituted working on the Sabbath and what constituted a load which was prohibited on the Sabbath came from these sorts of traditions.
Just like the Jews we need to be careful to recognise what the Bible actually says as opposed to how it has been understood by others and how it has been applied by others. Tradition can be a very helpful guide, but it must not be our authority.
But I want us to recognise that even if we took away those centuries of tradition which specified how heavy a load you were allowed to carry and how far you could walk on the Sabbath and so on, even the Old Testament Scriptures themselves give sufficient cause for these people to say “Hey, what are you doing there? God has clearly said that you must not work or carry loads into Jerusalem on this day.”
If they had done that they would have learnt - if they had not already recognised this man – that he had just been healed by God of a long affliction, and was simply going home! He was doing what God had told him to do.
That’s not a violation of God’s Sabbath laws. He’s not desecrating the Sabbath by choosing to do the things that he could do any other day of the week. He’s not refusing to spend a day in rest and meditation upon God’s works for them and His words to them. That’s what those laws are about. These laws are intended to safeguard purity and be a blessing to the people. Instead, this legalistic approach of the Jews turns the law into a burden.
These particular Jews are not concerned with the reality of what is going on and what God is doing. Their only concern is that their interpretation of God’s law is being violated, and they are angry about it.
The conclusion they reach about carrying the mat also applies to the work that Jesus did in performing the miracle. In their minds, that type of work was included in what God had forbidden on the Sabbath. We read in verse 16 that because Jesus did these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted Him.
The rest of chapter 5 records Jesus’ response to these Jews. We’ll go through it in detail later, but for now I want to simply point you toward verses 39 and 40, where Jesus says:
“39 You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life”
Their legalistic approach to the Old Testament Scriptures actually prevented them from understanding the true message, which was always to point people to Christ. In Him is our life, but we must come to Him as Saviour and Lord in order to receive it.
I want to spend some time today addressing the issue of legalism that this passage brings to our attention. I want to also address the related problem of lawlessness.
Legalism is where the letter of the law, and a particular interpretation of the law is what matters most. Everyone needs to fit within very tightly defined behavioural boundaries, and those boundaries are often heavily policed! There might be very good reasons behind those laws but sometimes those reasons get a bit lost, and just the law remains. No drinking. No smoking. No playing cards. No dancing. No listening to radio or watching TV. No shopping on Sunday. No sport on Sunday.
It might sound as though I’m making fun of some of those rules but I’m not. I’m just reciting some of the common rules that many of you would be familiar with which aren’t actually found in the Bible. They are rules that have been made because of what people read in the Bible and how they’ve applied the Bible to life.
At the opposite end of the spectrum to Legalism is Lawlessness. Legalism takes God’s Law and the principles taught in Scripture and adds more laws to it. It focuses on behaviour rather than on heart attitudes and seeks conformity to an external standard instead of transformation to the internal standard of Christ-likeness.
Lawlessness is where people don’t want to be conformed or transformed! They are a law unto themselves. Whatever I think is right is right for me. It’s like the people of Israel during the period of the Judges. The book of Judges is quite chaotic in many ways, the tribes have split up to do their own thing, there’s no effective system of accountability and we read of some horrible incidents where evil behaviour is tolerated and practiced among the people of God. The book finishes with a very telling statement: “In those days Israel had no king, everyone did what was right in their own eyes” (Jdg. 21:25).
There are a lot of Christians who live the same way. They reject the many passages in the Bible in which we are told to be accountable to one another, where we are urged to discipline one another in love, to challenge each other and correct each other. If you dare seek to confront an attitude or behaviour, even to simply question them about it without making any assumptions or judgements, then you are guaranteed to get a nasty response. We know that about people and that’s why there are some people who we just don’t go there with. We don’t challenge them. We don’t rebuke or warn or any of those things that they really need us to do for them in love.
A key passage that speaks about this is Galatians 5:13 – 15…
13 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. 14 The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
What matters are the heart attitudes that cause us to do what we do. If our heart’s desire is to honour God in serving one another, then we will use our freedom to be a wonderful blessing and to see God’s work progress. We will not get up in arms if Jesus breaks one of our rules in healing someone’s sickness like those Jews did, but we will rejoice in the goodness of God.
However if we use our freedom to indulge the sinful nature, then the result will be destruction for us.
To illustrate the principle of lawlessness I want to share a story from my own life – I’m not sure if some of you have heard it before. I had a young friend who was a new Christian – he was on fire for the Lord and full of joy in the new life that God had given him. However he was part of a group of young people in our church that was becoming interested in going to nightclubs. A legalist would look at that situation and say “Christians don’t belong in places like that”. Certainly that’s what the religious leaders of Jesus’ day said about good Jews – they just wouldn’t be seen in those sorts of environments and with those sort of people.
Jesus went into those environments and mixed with those sorts of people and He explained that He had a mission to seek and to save the lost. It’s not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick (Lk 5:31). Jesus was in the process of saving a tax collector named Matthew, who became a disciple and wrote a gospel that testifies to Jesus Christ.
There have been countless Christians who have followed Jesus’ example and gone into places of darkness and connected with people in darkness in order to bring the light of Jesus Christ into that situation. They do not fear the evil present because Jesus promised that the gates of Hell would not be able to overcome His Church. Today there are many Christians who go to Mardi Gras’ and red light districts and nightclubs and so on to rescue others from the dominion of darkness. They go there in holy fear and in righteous indignation, not to flirt with evil but to overcome it. Legalists have real problems with that.
But there have far, far too many Christians who have gone into those places not to represent Jesus but to escape Him. They have gone there because they like what they find. They get angry if they are challenged and say “Well Jesus went to places like this, you are being just like the Pharisees who condemned Him.” They won’t accept the warning and admonishment of Christians who are concerned for their souls and their witness.
And Satan laughs as instead of resisting him these people flirt with him, thinking they can have their fun and then skip away. My young friend followed his Christian peer group into a place that was saturated with sexual provocation. The music, the environment, the clothing, the styles of dancing – everything conspired to pull him into temptation. They did not flee it together - they courted it, and it won them over. It shipwrecked his faith and I have no idea today where he stands with God.
My friends we have got to be allowing the Spirit of God to bring conviction in our hearts through the Word of God as it is shared with us by the people of God. We must not become a law unto ourselves. We must not despise the grace of God by considering it to give us a free pass to sin. It doesn’t.
In Colossians 1:28 Paul says…
28 We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.
An attitude of lawlessness says “Teach all you like, but it’s up to the Holy Spirit to convict people. Don’t you try tell me what I should or shouldn’t be doing, you just teach the Bible.” And of course people want a lot more than that from their Pastor – they want help or comfort or support in whatever they are struggling with. But we’re not keen on admonishment – a warning from Scripture about how we are living.
However Paul says that both are needed – the teaching and the admonishment. That’s how to present people perfect in Christ.
I confess to you that I have not admonished as much as I ought to have. I’ve got to say that I struggle to admonish people who are older than myself. The young adults cop plenty! I have offered some admonishment to others on a few occasions but to be quite frank the results haven’t been that encouraging.
Paul wrote to Timothy, who was probably about my age, with this advice:
Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, 2 older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.
(1 Timothy 5:1-2)
This is something that I am working on – a gentle and respectful exhortation that does not hold back from sharing the Word of God to warn and to challenge. The Bible commands all of us to be willing to do that for each other. It’s not a spirit of legalism, it’s a spirit that wants to honour Christ, protect the purity of His Church and save a brother or sister from danger. Admonishing one another takes great humility, because it requires us to first test our own lives and attitudes.
The final point in this passages is very serious but I will comment on it just briefly.
Jesus found the man at the temple and said…
4. “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you."
Jesus isn’t implying that the man’s sickness was a punishment, which is what people often assumed. He is warning that if this man continues in sin, something worse than spending 38 years as an invalid will be the result.
That reflects what I mentioned earlier – physical healing is not the greatest need in our lives. Having a healthy body in this life doesn’t seem so important when compared to an eternity either with our without Christ.
When we read through the first 3 chapters of Revelation, we discover some very serious consequences if some of those churches do not listen to Jesus’ correction and change their attitudes and actions. Some are even threatened with extinction – their church will die if they do not heed Jesus’ rebuke.
What do you want for your own life? Do you want to glorify Jesus and experience His blessing, or will He be forced to discipline you as Hebrews 12 and other places describe?
What do you want for our church? Are you building it up or contributing to its demise? Don’t look at what anyone else is doing or not doing – you are accountable to your own Master just as they are.
All Scriptures taken from The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan
The Healing at Bethesda Pool pt 2
John 5:1-16
06/09/09
John 5:1-16
06/09/09
Introduction
Last week we discovered 2 great principles that are contained in the story of the healing at Bethesda pool. The first was found in Jesus’ statement: “Do you want to get well?”. We reflected on the fact that there are things in all of our lives that are not well. There are areas of sickness or of weakness that need God’s healing touch. He desires to heal us, but the real issue is whether or not we want to be healed. We often apply this principle straight away to the area of physical healing, and sometimes people are even accused of limiting God’s healing power through their own doubt or lack of faith or special knowledge or some sin that prohibits God from performing a physical healing. I don’t believe the Bible supports that view in any way. That’s a separate study which I’m happy to talk to people about later. I believe the Bible clearly demonstrates that God’s priority in working His healing power in our lives places the greatest emphasis on spiritual healing – I’m not using that term in the same way that many in our society do, I’m talking about a healing of the relationship between God and us through faith in Jesus Christ which brings about reconciliation, adoption into God’s family, the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit and the journey of learning to walk in step with the Spirit until the time of our glorification when we will finally be united with God the Father, Son and Spirit, and will live with Him forever. Spiritual healing is God’s number one priority, and both the Old and New Testaments describe how He has often and will often use physical chastening – including sickness and suffering – to bring about this more important healing in the area of our spiritual life.
The Bible also clearly talks about God’s priority to heal our social relationships – our relationships with people, whether that is in our earthly families, our friends, our colleagues, our Church family, our enemies and so on. God wants to bring about right relationship between people.
Another great priority for God is healing in the area of our moral character. He wants us to be people who do what is right. He wants us to be pure and holy. This goes together with our spiritual and our social life. You can’t have right relationship with God or with people without a personal commitment to do what is right.
We could go on talking about the many areas of our lives: our thought life, our emotions, our finances, our circumstances and so on. Jesus said in John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Jesus wants to bring you to a point of full and unhindered life. He wants to heal the things that are not well in each and every part of our lives, but His priorities in doing so are not the same as what we might prescript for ourselves. We might think “I’d rather have a healthy body and a selfish heart”. I suspect that Jesus would say “I’d rather you have a weakened body and heart full of love and wisdom and thankfulness. That’s going to do a lot more good and bring me a lot more glory than just another person who’s healthy on the outside but rotten on the inside”.
We’ve got to answer the question “Do you want to get well”, because Jesus wants all of us to get well. He’s got healing work to do in you and in me if we will let him. None of us are perfect, so what does Jesus want to heal in you today? Will you let him?
The second statement was “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk”. Having accepted Jesus’ offer of healing, the man now had to obey. Jesus is Saviour and He is Lord. If we want His saving power we must also want His rightful lordship over us. We must choose obedience as a core attitude in our lives. “Whatever you say Lord, I will do”. If you can’t say that you are not treating Jesus as Lord but as something far less. We need to search out His commands and put them into practice, then we will see the healing power of Christ at work in our lives. The man didn’t know he could walk until he got up and walked. How often do the commands of Jesus seem to difficult for us, and we settle for disobedience instead? “Yes I know the Bible says to do this but I’ve got all these problems – it’s too much for me!” If Jesus is Lord you will do what He says, and trust Him for the power to carry it out.
Today we are going to continue in the story, and we’ll discover two more key statements that are going to really challenge us.
The man by the pool has been healed after 38 years spent crippled by sickness or injury. He rises, takes up his mat and leaves the area in which he has been a virtual prisoner. The pool of Bethesda was near the sheep gate in Jerusalem, adjoining the Temple area. It’s quite likely that as he walked away carrying his mat that he would have passed by many devout Jews and their religious leaders.
From John 5:9b - 16
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”
12 So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him.
The third key point in this story is found in the statement of the Jews in verse 10…
3. “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
There are two things that upset these particular Jews – these were probably religious leaders who were present around the temple area. The first is that this man is carrying a mat on the Sabbath.
Exodus 31 records God’s command to Moses that anyone who does any work on the Sabbath should be put to death! (Ex. 31:14)
In Jeremiah 17 we read…
19 This is what the LORD said to me: “Go and stand at the gate of the people, through which the kings of Judah go in and out; stand also at all the other gates of Jerusalem. 20 Say to them, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and all people of Judah and everyone living in Jerusalem who come through these gates. 21 This is what the LORD says: Be careful not to carry a load on the Sabbath day or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem. 22 Do not bring a load out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your forefathers.
Imagine seeing someone coming in through the gates of Jerusalem carrying what you consider to be a load, in defiance of God’s law. If you are zealous for the law of God, you are going to be concerned by that!
So these Jews confront the man about his behaviour. He’s in trouble, so like most men since the time of Adam, he quickly shifts the blame! “I was told to do it by the guy who healed me” he says.
“Who is this guy?” they ask, but the man can’t tell them because Jesus has slipped away.
We very often condemn the Jewish religious leaders and teachers because of their strict adherence to centuries of tradition which seemed more important to them than the Scriptures themselves. Certainly, the thinking of these particular Jews as to what constituted working on the Sabbath and what constituted a load which was prohibited on the Sabbath came from these sorts of traditions.
Just like the Jews we need to be careful to recognise what the Bible actually says as opposed to how it has been understood by others and how it has been applied by others. Tradition can be a very helpful guide, but it must not be our authority.
But I want us to recognise that even if we took away those centuries of tradition which specified how heavy a load you were allowed to carry and how far you could walk on the Sabbath and so on, even the Old Testament Scriptures themselves give sufficient cause for these people to say “Hey, what are you doing there? God has clearly said that you must not work or carry loads into Jerusalem on this day.”
If they had done that they would have learnt - if they had not already recognised this man – that he had just been healed by God of a long affliction, and was simply going home! He was doing what God had told him to do.
That’s not a violation of God’s Sabbath laws. He’s not desecrating the Sabbath by choosing to do the things that he could do any other day of the week. He’s not refusing to spend a day in rest and meditation upon God’s works for them and His words to them. That’s what those laws are about. These laws are intended to safeguard purity and be a blessing to the people. Instead, this legalistic approach of the Jews turns the law into a burden.
These particular Jews are not concerned with the reality of what is going on and what God is doing. Their only concern is that their interpretation of God’s law is being violated, and they are angry about it.
The conclusion they reach about carrying the mat also applies to the work that Jesus did in performing the miracle. In their minds, that type of work was included in what God had forbidden on the Sabbath. We read in verse 16 that because Jesus did these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted Him.
The rest of chapter 5 records Jesus’ response to these Jews. We’ll go through it in detail later, but for now I want to simply point you toward verses 39 and 40, where Jesus says:
“39 You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life”
Their legalistic approach to the Old Testament Scriptures actually prevented them from understanding the true message, which was always to point people to Christ. In Him is our life, but we must come to Him as Saviour and Lord in order to receive it.
I want to spend some time today addressing the issue of legalism that this passage brings to our attention. I want to also address the related problem of lawlessness.
Legalism is where the letter of the law, and a particular interpretation of the law is what matters most. Everyone needs to fit within very tightly defined behavioural boundaries, and those boundaries are often heavily policed! There might be very good reasons behind those laws but sometimes those reasons get a bit lost, and just the law remains. No drinking. No smoking. No playing cards. No dancing. No listening to radio or watching TV. No shopping on Sunday. No sport on Sunday.
It might sound as though I’m making fun of some of those rules but I’m not. I’m just reciting some of the common rules that many of you would be familiar with which aren’t actually found in the Bible. They are rules that have been made because of what people read in the Bible and how they’ve applied the Bible to life.
At the opposite end of the spectrum to Legalism is Lawlessness. Legalism takes God’s Law and the principles taught in Scripture and adds more laws to it. It focuses on behaviour rather than on heart attitudes and seeks conformity to an external standard instead of transformation to the internal standard of Christ-likeness.
Lawlessness is where people don’t want to be conformed or transformed! They are a law unto themselves. Whatever I think is right is right for me. It’s like the people of Israel during the period of the Judges. The book of Judges is quite chaotic in many ways, the tribes have split up to do their own thing, there’s no effective system of accountability and we read of some horrible incidents where evil behaviour is tolerated and practiced among the people of God. The book finishes with a very telling statement: “In those days Israel had no king, everyone did what was right in their own eyes” (Jdg. 21:25).
There are a lot of Christians who live the same way. They reject the many passages in the Bible in which we are told to be accountable to one another, where we are urged to discipline one another in love, to challenge each other and correct each other. If you dare seek to confront an attitude or behaviour, even to simply question them about it without making any assumptions or judgements, then you are guaranteed to get a nasty response. We know that about people and that’s why there are some people who we just don’t go there with. We don’t challenge them. We don’t rebuke or warn or any of those things that they really need us to do for them in love.
A key passage that speaks about this is Galatians 5:13 – 15…
13 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. 14 The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
What matters are the heart attitudes that cause us to do what we do. If our heart’s desire is to honour God in serving one another, then we will use our freedom to be a wonderful blessing and to see God’s work progress. We will not get up in arms if Jesus breaks one of our rules in healing someone’s sickness like those Jews did, but we will rejoice in the goodness of God.
However if we use our freedom to indulge the sinful nature, then the result will be destruction for us.
To illustrate the principle of lawlessness I want to share a story from my own life – I’m not sure if some of you have heard it before. I had a young friend who was a new Christian – he was on fire for the Lord and full of joy in the new life that God had given him. However he was part of a group of young people in our church that was becoming interested in going to nightclubs. A legalist would look at that situation and say “Christians don’t belong in places like that”. Certainly that’s what the religious leaders of Jesus’ day said about good Jews – they just wouldn’t be seen in those sorts of environments and with those sort of people.
Jesus went into those environments and mixed with those sorts of people and He explained that He had a mission to seek and to save the lost. It’s not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick (Lk 5:31). Jesus was in the process of saving a tax collector named Matthew, who became a disciple and wrote a gospel that testifies to Jesus Christ.
There have been countless Christians who have followed Jesus’ example and gone into places of darkness and connected with people in darkness in order to bring the light of Jesus Christ into that situation. They do not fear the evil present because Jesus promised that the gates of Hell would not be able to overcome His Church. Today there are many Christians who go to Mardi Gras’ and red light districts and nightclubs and so on to rescue others from the dominion of darkness. They go there in holy fear and in righteous indignation, not to flirt with evil but to overcome it. Legalists have real problems with that.
But there have far, far too many Christians who have gone into those places not to represent Jesus but to escape Him. They have gone there because they like what they find. They get angry if they are challenged and say “Well Jesus went to places like this, you are being just like the Pharisees who condemned Him.” They won’t accept the warning and admonishment of Christians who are concerned for their souls and their witness.
And Satan laughs as instead of resisting him these people flirt with him, thinking they can have their fun and then skip away. My young friend followed his Christian peer group into a place that was saturated with sexual provocation. The music, the environment, the clothing, the styles of dancing – everything conspired to pull him into temptation. They did not flee it together - they courted it, and it won them over. It shipwrecked his faith and I have no idea today where he stands with God.
My friends we have got to be allowing the Spirit of God to bring conviction in our hearts through the Word of God as it is shared with us by the people of God. We must not become a law unto ourselves. We must not despise the grace of God by considering it to give us a free pass to sin. It doesn’t.
In Colossians 1:28 Paul says…
28 We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.
An attitude of lawlessness says “Teach all you like, but it’s up to the Holy Spirit to convict people. Don’t you try tell me what I should or shouldn’t be doing, you just teach the Bible.” And of course people want a lot more than that from their Pastor – they want help or comfort or support in whatever they are struggling with. But we’re not keen on admonishment – a warning from Scripture about how we are living.
However Paul says that both are needed – the teaching and the admonishment. That’s how to present people perfect in Christ.
I confess to you that I have not admonished as much as I ought to have. I’ve got to say that I struggle to admonish people who are older than myself. The young adults cop plenty! I have offered some admonishment to others on a few occasions but to be quite frank the results haven’t been that encouraging.
Paul wrote to Timothy, who was probably about my age, with this advice:
Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, 2 older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.
(1 Timothy 5:1-2)
This is something that I am working on – a gentle and respectful exhortation that does not hold back from sharing the Word of God to warn and to challenge. The Bible commands all of us to be willing to do that for each other. It’s not a spirit of legalism, it’s a spirit that wants to honour Christ, protect the purity of His Church and save a brother or sister from danger. Admonishing one another takes great humility, because it requires us to first test our own lives and attitudes.
The final point in this passages is very serious but I will comment on it just briefly.
Jesus found the man at the temple and said…
4. “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you."
Jesus isn’t implying that the man’s sickness was a punishment, which is what people often assumed. He is warning that if this man continues in sin, something worse than spending 38 years as an invalid will be the result.
That reflects what I mentioned earlier – physical healing is not the greatest need in our lives. Having a healthy body in this life doesn’t seem so important when compared to an eternity either with our without Christ.
When we read through the first 3 chapters of Revelation, we discover some very serious consequences if some of those churches do not listen to Jesus’ correction and change their attitudes and actions. Some are even threatened with extinction – their church will die if they do not heed Jesus’ rebuke.
What do you want for your own life? Do you want to glorify Jesus and experience His blessing, or will He be forced to discipline you as Hebrews 12 and other places describe?
What do you want for our church? Are you building it up or contributing to its demise? Don’t look at what anyone else is doing or not doing – you are accountable to your own Master just as they are.
All Scriptures taken from The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan
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