Ready...Aim...Fire!

Last week I posted an early edition of the youth lesson. Well...this week I'm doing it again.  You Lucky Dogs, you.  Most of this lesson is derived from the book Not a Fan by Kyle Idleman (Specifically chapter 5)  Hope you enjoy!

Hey guys! For those of you that missed last week, we are on the second lesson in our Not a Fan series. Last week, I helped Taylor navigate the turbulent waters of the DTR talk and challenged us to begin to reflect on the relationship we claim to have with Jesus. Is it healthy or dysfunctional? Basically, we were trying to be honest with ourselves for a moment.

Tonight, I want to share with you the story of Matt Emmons. Many would have considered him the best in the world at shooting a rifle. In fact, not only did he make it to the 2004 Olympics to compete against the world’s best marksmen, he was blowing away the competition. He was competing in the 3 position 50 meter rifle event and it came down to the last shot. He was in such a lead that he didn’t even need a bulls eye to win the gold metal it just needed to hit the target. His final shot he made would have qualified as an 8.1 which in more than enough to secure 1st place and the title, but in an extremely rare turn of events Matt, standing in lane 2, fired at the wrong target in lane 3 and scored a ‘0’ for missing the target completely. He would eventually finish in 8th place and no metal.

Often many are quick to assume that they are defiantly followers of Christ and not just mere fans. It’s not a question of their passion or work ethic, they have that. Sometimes we find ourselves aiming at the wrong target. We think that we are getting some pretty good scores, at least some acceptable ones, but my fear is that one day many of us are going to march confidently up to the medal ceremony and find that our score total is reading “0’s”

Talk about Olympians. When it came to the competition of religion, in the time of Jesus, guess who were the best in the world? The Pharisee’s and the Sadducees. They would put us to shame! They had the whole Old Testament memorized for goodness sake. If you were a Jewish boy growing up your parents would have you start to learn the Torah and by the age of 12 most kids had the thing memorized. It was like getting into college, it was prestigious, otherwise you would find a trade like fishing or something to make some money. So these guys were the cream of the crop. They did everything you would expect from a good elder of a church. They read and memorized scripture, held strictly to laws and even made up laws so the real laws wouldn’t even be close to broken. For example, God said that the Sabbath was to be a day of rest so they made a law that said if you spilled something on the Sabbath you couldn’t clean it up because you would be working, stuff like that. They were strict about making sure the religious laws were upheld to the “T.” According to the textbook, they were doing everything they were supposed to be doing…and more.

What is interesting is that Jesus came on the scene and started shaking things up. He started causing a raucous among these “experts” of religion. He began to criticize them. What!? Who criticizes them?? They are the ‘experts’ who would dare? Uh, …Jesus.

Jesus started calling it like it was and sometimes that gets messy. For example, I did a quick search and Jesus calls these guys hypocrites at least 15 times, and that’s only the amount the disciples wrote down. If you are trying to make friends and influence people, that’s not the best method to use. Somehow, I don’t think that was Jesus’s goal.

What Jesus was getting at was something more important. Jesus was telling everyone “Hey! You are doing a great job at your rules thing, you’re getting a bulls-eye every time, your just shooting at the wrong target. Your missing the point! And scoring zero’s.”

Hey! Wanna hear what Jesus said to these ‘experts’? I’m warning you, it’s like one of those sleazy talk shows like Jerry Springer. I kinda wish I was there as a bystander. I’m sure a whole lotta “oh, no he diiieeennt!” was being said and a lot of people looking at each other stunned. Jesus was on a Holy rant people! He was putting these people in their place! Read along…We are gonna call these the ‘seven woes’. They are found in Matthew 23.

14 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. 

15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

16 “Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’ 17 You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? 18 You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’ 19 You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21 And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. 22 And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it. (Basically your making up rules, event to get out of the promises you’ve made!)

23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

29 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. 30 And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!

33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? 34 Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. 35 And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.”

Yeah, can you start to see why these guys were starting to not like this Jesus guy? He was calling them out. True, he was telling the truth, it needed to be done, but he is calling them out and making it public. These guys were too prideful to let that happen. Any chance this new Rabbi had at becoming a part of the Sanhedrin or “in group” or “the Harvard school” of religious experts, he defiantly has blown his shot.

The problem was, people started to recognize that Jesus was not like the others (duh!) He spoke as one with authority. He didn’t just talk the talk, he walked the walk. He didn’t just sign petitions that said “I’m against homelessness” Instead he spent time with those that were in need. People started following this guy and the ‘experts’ had egg on their face. They were losing cred and fast!

If you are like me, we’ve grown up despising the Pharisee’s. We are in Jesus’s corner. I mean c’mon, Jesus is our homeboy, right? Down with the Pharisee’s! Booo!

The problem is…if you look at our lives sometimes we ARE the Pharisee’s. I mean, how often do we look with judgment at the teenage girl that just got pregnant? How often do we compare ourselves to others to make us feel better about our Spirituality? “At least I’m not THAT bad, right?” How often do we work to do all the right ‘things’ to be a Christian and blow the relationship part? Are we really that different sometimes? It certainly doesn’t feel good to read the 7 woes that Jesus gives if we think that it might be us he is talking about.

The word Sanctification in the bible is used to mean the act of becoming Holy. It’s the process of building a life honorable to God and getting rid of the stuff that God hates. This process of looking more and more like Jesus through our heart, actions, and lives is kind-of like building a house. The most important part of the house are things like making sure the foundation is strong and stable, making sure the corners are square and sturdy, and framing the house with stability. We are working to create a great house out of our lives for God.

What Jesus describes the Pharisee’s doing and what is common with us is that our foundation is horrible and our walls look like a 5th grader was practicing his hammering and tacked some boards together, but we spend so much time making sure our wallpaper looks so nice and perfect. We are shopping at designer stores for house decorations to make the appearances look really good, but underneath it’s a mess.

If you think that may be you, if you think that your house is a wreck and you are trying to make your hoopty of a house look as good as possible. If you know that on the inside, you are a mess and Jesus is probably talking straight to you, listen very closely. You might be aiming at the wrong target. Jesus was very stern in his warning, “How will you escape being condemned to Hell?” Newsflash! It’s real.

While many of the Pharisee’s got red with anger and thought ‘How dare he!” One of them was struck to the heart. His name was Nicodemus. When none of the others were looking, he stuck away in the night to find Jesus. He sought him out. He then asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” In a moment of humility the ‘expert’ humbled himself. Jesus then told him that he must be born again. Just like Nicodemus, you might be confused by what Jesus is saying. Essentially, you need to die to yourself and be born a-new in Christ. We need to let God bring in the bull-dozers and demolish this shack of a building that we have tried to build ourselves and hire a new contractor. We need to let God come in and construct our life, listen to his plans, read his blueprint, and trust him to construct the place. He is a good contractor. He’s the only one that can do it right. With His help this construction will be right on target.