Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRO: There was a girl I read about, and writer of the story says that when she was in high school she got pregnant at around seventeen years old.

INTRO: There was a girl I read about, and writer of the story says that when she was in high school she got pregnant at around seventeen years old.

· It was a pretty small town and the church she went to (and the author of the story) wasn’t that big of a church, so news of the pregnancy spread quickly.

· For a while she kept trying to come to church even though she was showing, but some of the

parents had a problem with this because they didn’t want their kids to see this teenager who

was pregnant.

· One Sunday morning there were two moms sitting in the pew, and this girl, quite pregnant at that point, walked into the sanctuary, and one mom said to the other mom, “I can’t believe she’d come here in a condition like that.”

· No one saw her in that church, or any other after that.

Some years later, the one telling this story, and the one who witnessed these events, became friends with this now woman on Facebook.

· There is one section where you list your favorite quotes, and he noticed one of her favorite quotes.

· This is some sixteen, seventeen years later and here is one of her favorite quotes—it comes from Gandhi:

“I like your Christ.

I do not like your Christians.

Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” - Gandhi

And that story reminds me of another story in John Chapter 8.

· We read about Jesus teaching in the courtyard one morning.

· His teaching is interrupted by an angry mob that bursts onto the scene, but the mob is made up of the religious leaders of His day.

· Being pushed along on the crest of the mob is this woman, and perhaps she is dressed in nothing but a bed sheet as she is shoved to the dirt on the ground in front of Jesus.

· One of the religious leaders gives the accusation to Jesus and says, “We found this woman in bed with a man that was not her husband.

The Law says we stone her.

What do you say?”

· This was a pushy move by these religious leaders.

· They use the rules to try to trap Jesus.

· Rules can do that to us; turn us into an angry mob of sorts.

· We might not form together and parade a sinner around town, but we’ll huddle in whispering circles and drop someone’s name to everyone we talk to.

Please understand: God’s Word provides both guidance and commandments.

· And those commandments, those laws, they are here to protect us.

· And, if we’re honest, none of us can follow those laws perfectly.

· Every one of us has fallen short, some of us in more public settings, and others in more private ones.

· But when we overemphasize following the rules, we can get people thinking we’ve got it all figured out.

· We can get people thinking they shouldn’t share their struggles with us, because we’re perfect.

· And that’s what I want to address this morning.

Sometimes, certain Christians can be a lot more like the Pharisees and religious leaders than our Messiah, and they end up using the rules to rationalize how they treat others in the church, especially newcomers or those whose sins are more difficult to hide.

· Now I think this happens oftentimes unintentionally.

· Christians like these mean well.

· They’ll say, “Well, we’re keeping the standard high.

We want to make sure we maintain a certain level of excellence.”

· So they make it hard for people to come to God.

· “If you want to come to God then you’ve got to follow all these rules that we’ve established just to make sure that only the people who are really serious get in.”

· But in the end, these well-meaning believers end up creating a list of rules that wear out and frustrate new believers.

There are a few problems with rules-based religion...

1) Rules Can Be Cumbersome

For example Susan and I chose to send our children to a Christian school that has a lot of rules.

· I want you to understand me.

· They have every right to have these rules.

· I think it’s great for schools or for homes and families to make some of these rules.

· I don’t have a problem with them, but there are just a lot of rules.

· Like, you can’t have your hair below your collar if you were a boy, and girls’ skirts have to be a certain length, and they monitor that stuff.

· They have to wear certain kinds of clothes on certain days; on Wednesdays, chapel days, they have to dress up a little.

· Lots of rules that are monitored and followed closely

Again, it’s fine for schools, families to have those rules, but here is what we have to guard against since our children go to that school (or in Isaac’s case, went): Sometimes kids who go to those kinds of schools start to associate those rules, not with going to school, but, with being a Christian.

· Somehow many of them get the message that these are rules you’ve got to follow if you’re really a Christian.

· And when they graduated from high school many of them just walked away because they were tired.

· They were exhausted from trying to keep all these rules at school & at home.

· And again those rules are fine.

· The problem is that they had somehow gotten the idea that following those rules made them a Christian.

This woman in , she is looking down—humiliated, guilty, and ashamed.

· She’s been caught breaking the rules, and this may be the day that breaking a rule costs her everything.

· Jesus kneels down and He begins to write something in the dirt.

· We don’t know what He was writing.

· Some commentators speculate that perhaps He was writing the sins of the accusers in the dirt.

· Meanwhile, the religious leaders wait for an answer.

· They know they’ve caught Jesus by surprise, & they’re ready to hear Him submit to the letter of the law.

· They’re waiting for him to shrug his shoulders and say, “Well, those are the rules.”

Finally, Jesus looks up at these spiritual leaders & He says, “If any one of you is without sin, he can cast the first stone.”

· And one by one these bullies drop their stones (I think they know that Jesus knows) and they walk away and Jesus is left alone with this woman.

· And perhaps with a little bit of a smile, He looks up at her & He says, “Is there anyone left to condemn you?”

· Maybe she thought, “There is still one.

There is still one who could condemn me.”

· And then Jesus says with tenderness, “Neither do I condemn you.

You go now & leave your life of sin.”

Another problem with rules-based religion is...

2) The Rules Don’t Inspire Grace

One Christian High School teacher decided to teach his kids a lesson on God’s grace - he did something a little unusual.

· He handed out a test to the class that they knew would be difficult.

· They had been preparing for this test for several months.

· When he handed out the test, he told them, I want you to read through the entire test before you begin to take it.

· As they read through the test – most of them realized they were in trouble – I should have studied more – but then when you got to the end of the multiple page test you read these words at the bottom, it said, You can try and get an “A” by taking this test or you can just put your name on it and automatically receive an “A.”

· Most immediately signed thier name, walked up to the desk & walked out.

· One of the boys in the class didn’t read through the test – he just started taking the test – though most of the class turned their test in after a few seconds, this one boy never caught on.

· This boy could have used an “A”.

· And then there was this one girl who got quite upset because she had spent so much time studying – and what kind of teacher gives an “A” for nothing!

· She stayed and took the test on principle.

· If she was going to get an “A” she was going to earn it.

· And rules-based religious people say – I’m not taking any handouts – I can do this on my own.

· And so these people spend their lives carrying around the burden of religion.

And the grace of Jesus, that same grace that saved a woman from being stoned, calls to those who have been hauling around a long list of rules and rituals and obligations – Jesus calls to those who are tired of pretending to be more than they are.

· He calls to those who have had the guilt and fear of religions wear them down and he says

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” - Jesus

Maybe you grew up in a home where you were taught all about Jesus.

· You went to church on the weekend and church camp in the summer.

· And you learned to fear Jesus…so you kept as many rules as you could hoping you wouldn’t go to hell.

· And when you would sin you would feel guilt wondering if you would be good enough.

· And you were taught to observe different religious traditions and rule keeping.

· But, you never really fell in love with Jesus.

· You were too busy trying to keep all the rules to develop any REAL relationship with Jesus.

· Because when you come into a situation in which rules take precedence over love and grace, it’s hard to fall in love.

Think about it this way: when I got married to my wife there were some rules that I said

I would live by – some of them are written, some unwritten.

But I understood when I said “I DO” that I would: