Churchianity vs Christianity: Bonus Material

So I was listening to a sermon online this week and I heard a pastor named Andy Stanley say something that I thought was kind of provocative. See what you think of this statement. He said most of the things that people resist about church are things the church should resist. Now think about that for just a second. Most of the things that people who are outside the church resist about church are things that the church should resist too. Would you agree with that? I do.

Let me put it this way. You know I have never heard people say, you know I don't like Christians because they follow Jesus. That really bugs me about Christians always talking about Jesus and the gospel and love all the time. I mean I suppose a few people say that but most of the time what I hear people say is this. I don't like Christians because they're judgmental. Because they're legalistic. Because they're joyless. Because they're mean. Because they're superstitious.

And I don't know exactly what they mean when they say that but I'll tell you if all those things are true we should resist all those things too. In fact the vast majority of things that people don't like about church that maybe some of you here today don't like about church aren't even Christianity. They're what I call church-y-anity. And they push people away from God instead of bringing people toward God.

And did you know that there is an entire book of the Bible about this? Let's talk about it. Pick up your message notes that are in your bulletins that look like this. The logo free. That's what we call our verse by verse series in the book of Galatians. Today let's talk about church-y-anity versus Christianity. Because since the days of Jesus Christ people have been confusing those two. And Paul talks about it here in Galatians 4:8–31.

Now this is one of the most dense and intense parts of the book of Galatians but it is so important. So kind of get the thinking caps on here because we're gonna go deep this morning. Now we've been in this book a couple of months going through it verse by verse. So let me give you the plot so far. The Galatians were pagans. They were non-Jewish Greek pagans who worshiped gods like Poseidon or Pan or Artemis. And they get led to faith in Christ by the Apostle Paul. They become Jesus followers. They're full of joy. And then disaster strikes.

Paul leaves and false teachers from Jerusalem swoop in and say faith in Jesus is not enough. You need to follow strict religious rules. Extra commands from the Bible. Circumcision and all the feasts and all the pilgrimages to the temple and all these extra rules that you find in the Hebrew Scriptures. And the Galatians try real hard to keep this long list of hundreds of rules and rituals. The result a joyless church-y-anity instead of a joyful Christianity.

So the Apostle Paul writes them a letter and it's in our Bibles as the letter to the Galatians. This is probably the earliest book ever written that wound up in the New Testament. And it's fascinating because it shows you this struggle for the identity of the faith that was going on even then and has continued for 2,000 years. And Paul is very intense because the future of the Christian message is at stake.

And what he's essentially doing in this book is warning the Galatians against becoming religious. Let's pick it up in chapter 4 verse 8. He says, "Before you Gentiles knew God, you were slaves to so-called gods that don't even really exist. So now that you know God, or should I say now that God knows you..." Now press pause. That's a very important distinction by the way. Your salvation, your spiritual life is grounded not in your search for God. It's grounded in God's search for you.

And this is huge because if it depends on your knowledge of God, well really how can you really be secure about your standing with God? Because what do you know about God? But if it depends on God knowing you, God always knows you. He always loves you. He always knows you perfectly. Then you can relax because God knows you. And the word "know" in the Bible means more than just intellectual awareness. It means a personal relationship.

And so Paul's saying, "Now that you have a relationship with God by God's initiative," verse 9, "why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of the world? Now that you have a relationship, why do you want to go back to religion?" Now I want to stop here because this is one of the most startling passages in the Bible if you really see what Paul means.

If you've got your Bibles open, you got the notes there, and you got a pen or a pencil, I want you to circle the phrase "weak and useless spiritual principles." What's he mean there? In verse 3 of chapter 4, a couple of weeks ago, we saw that the same phrase comes up. Then Paul was referring to the earlier pagan religion of the Galatians. Now don't miss this because if you get what he's saying, it will blow your mind and in fact it probably will make some of you mad because it's so radical.

He's saying way back when the Galatians, when they were pagans, they worshiped the elemental forces of the world. You know, the pagans worshiped earth, wind, fire, fertility, war, all of these forces which they personified as gods. And so like the farmers would sacrifice to the agriculture god, the sailors would sacrifice to the sea god, businessmen would sacrifice to the goddess of good fortune, all of these elemental forces which they personified as gods, but Paul says here in verse 8, "they're not gods, but they treated them as gods."

And the pagans did this because they thought if they did the right thing for the right god in the right way, then they just might get something from that god. It was a transactional religion in Latin, a quid pro quo religion. I do this for that, right? That was their religion, that was paganism. And here Paul says, "now you're returning to those same weak and useless stupid principles." Now again, just stop. Do you see what Paul is saying here? This outraged people.

He says, "you're now returning to the same weak and useless principles as when you were pagans and you thought your relationship with God depended on whether or not you sacrificed the goats the right way, but were the Galatians returning to paganism?" No. What were they doing? They were trying to keep the biblical law to earn favor with God. Do you see how radical this is?

Paul is equating at some level the way they are approaching the Bible, the law of God in the Bible that came down with Moses from Mount Sinai with pagan religion. That is incredible. He's saying you're approaching the law of God like it's magic, like some sort of magical force. What Paul is saying is this, it's possible to treat even good things as idols. Do you agree with that? It's possible to treat even good things as idols.

The Bible is good, the Ten Commandments are good, church is good, family is good, but it's possible to idolize them, to treat them like pagans treated their own sacrifices, to say, "You know, if I read more of the Bible and if I keep the Ten Commandments perfectly and if I only go to church more and if I'm a better husband and a better father then I'm gonna earn some kind of a favor for God. I'm gonna get compensation because I did this sacrifice." And that is an essentially pagan way of looking at Christianity.

Because in Christianity your faith is based not on what you do for God to get something from God. It's based on God's knowledge of and love for you that is infinite and unconditional no matter what you did, you didn't do anything to earn it. And Paul is saying you got that all backwards.

You know when I was a youth pastor in San Diego there was a young woman there who was a witch, literally. She led a coven in the local high school and she came to faith in Christ in our youth group. Her name was Jaden. And I've told some of you before Jade had an insight into Christianity that I have never forgotten. I thought it was brilliant.

Jade was helping a group of us stack chairs, you know, after youth group and she said, "René, I just I feel like I want to tell you something but I'm not sure it's true. I'm not sure I'm seeing things accurately." I said, "What is it Jade?" And she said, "Well it seems to me the way that some of these..." She goes, "Now I'm a new Christian and I don't understand all this." But she said, "It seems to me the way some of these Christians approach their Christianity," she said, "Well it's kind of more like witchcraft than Christianity."

I said, "What do you mean Jade?" And she said, "Well it seems like they think if they pray the right way and they memorize more Bible and they attend church regularly then they're going to get something from God." She said, "Now that I'm a Christian my faith is all about letting God pull my strings. I totally trust God. He loves me. He knows what's best and I just want to yield myself to Him and worship Him." She said, "When I was practicing witchcraft it was all about trying to pull the God's strings, trying to see what I could get through incantations and rituals to make the elemental forces go my direction." But she said, "That's kind of the mentality that some of these Christians have. It's almost more witchcraft than Christianity."

And I told Jade, "I think you are dead on." And that is exactly what Paul is saying here to the Galatians. You're treating these holy things of God like they've got some kind of magic power. And this has been a problem for 2,000 years in the Christian Church. It has masked the true message of Jesus Christ on and off for two millennia and it does it here in Santa Cruz too.

And so one of the most important questions we can ask is, "How does this happen? How does Christianity change into churchianity? How does the belief in God's grace turn back into pagan magic?" Well I want you to watch this because Paul now describes how Christ plus teachers, these false teachers, will try to steal your freedom. This is how they stole the Galatians' freedom and this is how they will try to steal your freedom in Christ. And you and I really need to hear this because of the Galatian Christians who were taught about grace by the Apostle Paul could be led astray that it can happen to you and me too.

You're saying, "What do you mean, René? You know, we don't listen to false teachers, we listen to you. Well how do you know I'm not false, right?" First of all, it could happen right here. Secondly, some book you pick up, some YouTube videos somebody sends you, some televangelist you see on TV, something you hear on some TV talk show, anything could be teaching this essentially magical pagan view of what the Bible teaches instead of a grace-oriented view of what the Bible teaches. So you have to understand the strategies, okay?

Here we go. Paul says, "Number one, they will teach you that you need special extra techniques." We've talked about this a lot in this series. Paul talks about it in Galatians. Special extra techniques to take you to the next level in your Christianity instead of a simple focus on grace. Here's the way it happened for Galatians. Paul says in verse 10, "You are trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years. I fear for you."

You see what's happening here? Apparently the Galatians were taught that if they didn't keep the feast days and the years of Jubilee and the Sabbath and everything else in the Bible then God wouldn't bless them. It wasn't by God's grace, it was by if they kept these things then God would bless them. If they didn't God wouldn't bless them. Do people still teach this kind of stuff? Absolutely.

I was in the airport bookstore the other day like a week and a half ago up in Portland just kind of browsing while I was waiting for my flight to start. It kind of surprised me that in the Portland Airport bookstore of all things there would be a religious section but there was and then it dawned on me it's probably because people are afraid of flying you know. Don't you think? And they're like I'm so afraid I'm just gonna get a religious book you know it's kind of like good luck or something. Could read the Bible nah I'll get this religious book.

But I was looking at this and picked up a couple of books and turned it over the back of the first book I saw had bullet points on the back and it said this I'm not exaggerating. Learn how you can heal any one of their diseases anytime you pray for them. Learn God's precise will for everything you do every time. Prophesy the future for your friends and relatives. If you read this if you buy this book and read my techniques I'm gonna teach you. It wasn't about Jesus it was about extra techniques that you can learn to enhance your power. Is that Christianity or is that witchcraft? I ask you.

Do you see how this 2,000 year old issue is exactly the same today? I'll say this this is I really debated whether or not to share this because I never want to come across as being critical of another church or another pastor so I won't name the place but I was visiting a church recently was not even in this country where the pastor's message was really great. It was all about grace like 95% the topic was law versus grace and he did a super job talking about all the riches of God's grace until suddenly he takes this left turn and I'm like I look at my wife what did he just say and I actually jotted it down he said and part of God's grace to everyone is he has given us the power to heal all disease and to see into the future for your friends and family and he says and if you do not do these things then you do not know the riches of God's grace and I question if you're really saved.

And what happens is the problem is all these things lead to slavery and here's how because whatever you're trying to do in these technique oriented systems is never quite enough because nobody ever gets exactly what they want or exactly what they pray for or exactly what they're seeking for or exactly knows God's guidance every time and so what you do is you figure I must not be doing it right and so you're easy prey to people to come along and say well let me teach you some more secret principles why well you don't know the real secret methods and it never ends it's spiritual slavery this is why Paul says I fear for you and the key phrase here is the phrase you are trying to earn favor with God.

Would you agree with me when I say that most people on the street and even I would say maybe most people in the pews think that's exactly what Christianity is trying to earn favor with God try to be good so you can go to heaven you know believe harder try harder to be good and then you'll accomplish it. I found a little video on YouTube that I thought was funny and to me it's a metaphor for what religion turns into for a lot of us watch this.

Hello friends I wanted to make this video to hopefully inspire you to do something that you didn't think was possible like I'm gonna do with this board here and what you need to do is to set up something you want to do make a plan to go through with it and then you which you know what you have to do is make a plan of action follow through with it you're gonna believe in yourself that's first isn't it believe in yourself formulate a plan of action and follow through with it and if you believe you can do something then you can't like I can do with this board didn't believe in myself enough try again apparently I don't believe in myself as much I listen to this you hurt yourself there's his mother in the background but man isn't that exactly a lot of people's experience with religion right keep trying harder apparently I didn't believe hard enough only they're not trying to break a board they're trying to break a habit or a sin and what you learn is it's not about your strength.

We essentially for our own salvation or for our own holiness or to overcome some destructive behavior we are powerless we're in the trench of self-destructive behavior it's not about our strength we can't believe in ourselves enough it's about God's power it's about God's strength and that is the realization the Galatians are slipping from and then Paul reveals another one of their tactics number two is religious zeal.

Religious zeal you know what religious zeal is right it sounds like this don't you want to be sold out for Jesus don't you want to stop being lukewarm and live a radical devoted life don't you want to give your all to God? Well yes of course I do well then here's how do what I tell you and Paul nails it he says these people are zealous to win you over but for no good like he points out on the next verse it's fine to be zealous provided the purpose is good do you see the distinction he's making here?

In other words the depths of somebody's zeal or commitment means nothing the intensity of somebody's radical abandonment proves nothing it proves nothing about whether or not the purpose is good but again people get tricked by this. I've heard people say about a nationally known speaker that I believe is mixing works with grace but he's so passionate but I but I love how the things he says are so radical he has so much heart so much spirit so what is he right? Paul says that's fine to be zealous if it's right is he preaching the gospel not just as zealous?

And then you often see a third strategy which is alienation from others. Alienation from others look at what Paul says what they want is to alienate you from us that is exactly how cults and legalists operate unhealthy churches operate they isolate they silo they seal off we're the only true Christians don't listen to them they'll only lead you astray in logic classes they call this poisoning the well you paint somebody else as a demon so anything they say is discounted like Paul says in verse 16 have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth and that's exactly what happens when you try to talk to somebody in a legalistic cult or near cult.

If you challenge their beliefs by telling them the truth you're now the enemy because the well's been poisoned they've been alienating them from you and then the final characteristic he talks about is personality focused ministry. He says they're trying to win you over so you may have zeal for them you know what they want to do is build their brand they want to get more followers.

Now before you flip your page over I want you to look at all four of these together do you see what happens here you end up with a system that's almost impossible for the followers to see objectively because if you object to the leader then you're seen as being disloyal and if this is how false teachers kind of create an atmosphere then what do healthy churches do well the opposite of this right?

I mean working from the top down a healthy church doesn't teach endless technique but keeps focusing on one key God's grace a healthy church doesn't separate zeal from truth a healthy church doesn't isolate and poison the well it endeavors to be a safe place for people who disagree on issues to come and ask questions and to dialogue it's not threatened by disagreement a healthy church is Jesus focused not pastor focused and you know what that is a constant battle in every church to be healthy to be Christian and not church Ian including in this church.

But you see the big picture here Paul is warning that the biggest danger in church is from religious people not atheists not skeptics not sinners not secular humanists remember them you know he's saying it's actually from religious people because they're gonna try to rewrite the DNA of the church so that when it reproduces it is mutated into something else churchy entity instead of Christianity.

And in the as he wraps up chapter 4 Paul closes with a famous story to illustrate all of this. Now fair warning we are now moving into the section that is always considered by commentators the hardest part of Galatians to understand now I don't think this is that obscure you just need a little historical background so follow me as we journey back into time a few thousand years to set the stage for Paul's illustration here.

If you know the story I'm gonna tell you I think you'll totally get what Paul is saying once upon a time many thousands of years ago a rich caravan owner who lived in what is now Iraq was promised by God that he would have a child and that he would be the father of a great nation and the man's name was what Abram and his wife's name was well years go by and do they have a baby no nothing happens Abram remains childless even though he had this promise from God and so he literally decides to take matters into his own hands and he sleeps with his wife's servant girl Hagar and Hagar gets pregnant and has a son named Ishmael through listen through human effort Abram was trying to achieve God's promise.

And then much to everybody's surprise when Sarah is 90 miraculously she has a baby to talk about your unplanned pregnancies right this was a doozy Sarah's got a baby boy named Isaac so now Abram has two sons and ever since then there's been conflict between the two sons and the descendants of the two boys have been fighting for control of the promised land.

But Paul is not making a point here about Arab-Israeli conflict Paul says this story can be taken figuratively to show what happens inside every church family. This is very clever of Paul because apparently these teachers of the Galatians like to make themselves seem credible by saying hey listen we are sons of Abraham we're sons of Abraham and so Paul says fine I won't argue I'll grant you your sons of Abraham but which son and he says this tell me you who want to live under the law don't you know what the law actually says?

The scriptures say that Abraham had two sons one from the slave woman one from the free woman the son of the slave woman was born watch this in a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God's promise but the son of the freeborn woman was born as God's own fulfillment of his promise. These two women serve as an illustration and again if you get what he's saying here this is explosive he's saying there are two different kinds of people vying for control of every church and they look very similar their brothers look at the parallels between Abraham's sons and these two groups in the church first one represents seeking salvation by works the other by grace right Ishmael was born as a result of human beings trying to achieve the promise of God through their own effort and the children of that system like Hagar's son are slaves they're slaves to religion and so their dour and their sour and their judgmental and negative and preachy.

I love a pastor named Steve Brown he says they've been given a bottle of miserable pills and told their mission in life is to medicate the world that's them but the children of the free woman are free why because there's not they were they were doomed there's nothing they could do this save themselves Paul illustrates by quoting an ancient prophecy Isaiah 54:1 for it is written be glad barren woman you who never bore a child shout for joy and cry aloud you who never were in labor because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.

What's he talking about here in ancient times a woman's worth consisted basically in how many children she could bear now this is not something the Bible condoned in fact repeatedly the Bible teaches against that view but let's face it even today in our modern world that single women or childless women often feel stigmatized they tell me they feel the unspoken implication that somehow they have failed but do you see what this verse says because of grace it doesn't matter what you are or who you are you may be an outcast you may feel marginalized as childless women were in those days you may feel infertile spiritually you may be in a situation where it's as impossible for you to to save yourself it's as impossible for you to turn to God as it is for an infertile unmarried woman to have a child.

But what this verse means is God's grace will come through and miraculously make it happen Paul's saying God's grace is especially for the barren he's saying anyone can know God through the gospel of grace regardless of record regardless of ability regardless of background it doesn't matter what you've done or how weak you are or what other people say about you God saves you by his grace as miraculously as God gave Sarah a child and that's awesome and that's why when you get that you're glad and you shout for joy.

Then the second thing he is pointing out here is that one brother resembles the other they were brothers and so they looked similar right it was maybe hard to tell them apart here at TLC we have this we've got two pastors on staff who are brothers many of you know who I'm talking about Mark and Paul Spurlock they aren't twins but a lot of people assume they are they both have red hair they both have freckles they're both about the same height same build in fact some people think they are actually the same person it's actually true very famously one time about 20 years ago our previous pastor Roy Kraft was introducing Paul Spurlock at an event and in his mind just for a second he conflated the two brothers and as in his introduction he added both all their achievements together he said here's a young man who went to Biola and Cal Poly and directs camp hammer and is a youth pastor in Los Angeles how does he do all that he was completely confused for a minute.

And in the church the church ian's and the Christians the two brothers look similar in fact they look almost exactly the same they both quote the same scripture they both use similar language they both maybe sit in the same pews sing the same songs I mean there's so many ways that similarity extends even to church names you know I had a good friend who was at a great church in Tahoe called bread of life but there was also a notorious cult that went belly up in the 90s called bread of life you know there's great churches called church of Christ and there's cults called church of Christ I don't know why we think that all weird churches are gonna have names like the community of nuts you know or Our Lady of Perpetual Shame and Manipulation or something like that but Paul's saying you got to look beneath the surface and see what the brothers are actually teaching.

Second Paul or third he wraps up his point with this and this is intense one persecutes the other he says at that time the Sun born according to the flesh persecuted the Sun born by the power of the Spirit and it's the same now do you see the astounding thing here he's not saying the world will try to destroy the church that's of course true from time to time but he's saying the real danger is the virus of churchianity that will creep in and try to change the DNA from grace to performance and he says this has always been the case.

Think of it who are the people really against Jesus the people found him fascinating the Romans didn't really care until like the last day no what happened was the religious leaders who had a stake in the corrupted temple system of the time wanted him gone why he was preaching an easy yoke he was preaching freedom for the captives he was welcoming prostitutes and sinners and so the children of slavery tried to silence the son of freedom and that happens to this day.

There's hardly a more important question you can ask than so what do we do about that because the future of your joy and the future of the reputation of this gathering of believers and honestly the future of Christianity depends on what we do in response to that what do we do? Well I'll tell you in just a second but first I want to address three groups because some of you are saying I wish this had been a more practical rather than theological message frankly René because I need help with my marriage I need help raising my teenager I need help climbing out of my depression and the Bible has practical verses for all of that and Galatians gets there but do you see how grace is the foundation of all of that?

When you understand grace when you understand you were barren but God made you fertile through no power of your own when you get that grace gives you the framework to see every person and every problem in a completely new light that empowers you and if you don't understand that grace is the foundation then all you'll do to try to solve your problems is learn endless how-to principles with no coherent Christian framework.

The second group some of you are going but but but if we let go of churchianity what will keep people from sinning René don't we have to be holy? Yes be holy as God is holy but Paul's point is not that we don't have to be holy Paul's point is churchianity doesn't work to make you holy so what does work you'll have to come back next week for that but some of you are thinking well a third group is thinking well if this is all true then what use is there for the Old Testament law are you saying we should just throw away the Old Testament? No and that's why I put some Galatians extras down at the bottom of your notes you'll see the URL you can go to it's a little 16-minute Bible study that I did with a PDF of a bunch of verses that you can download.

What use is the Old Testament law for us today that is a great question and we don't have time to get into it this morning so if you want to download it maybe go through it with your own small group you can do that but let me let me just say this the bottom line is this you and I need to guard our freedom and do not let people lead you away from God's grace and how do you do that we've said it before the greatest thing you can do is to keep preaching the gospel to yourself.

I'll end with this a couple of weeks ago we set up a camera and said whoever wants to come by and tell us your faith story and I was so happy to see that so many of them had to do with grace. Here's just a couple watch this when I was doing this the series on Abba father and he shares his story with about his passing of his dad and stepdad stuff like that and I was also having to be the first first part of the month first month the visitors center of the communion the whole bit right I came into the visitor center to meet with him and he says hi how you doing I looked up at him big red eyes swollen from crying cuz I was crying on the way over to church because I was missing my dad who I did not know and I looked up and I said I was five and my sister was three and he knew exactly I knew instantly that he knew exactly what I was talking about.

I think I've been looking for the wrong father all my life I think the most important thing that God has shown me through Twin Lakes is the deep understanding of his grace and I feel like in today's society we can feel like we have to win approval from a friend or a co-worker or even God so I feel like once we have that deep understanding of what God's grace is not just know it but have a deep understanding of it the overwhelming piece that takes over our life is just amazing and there's no winning or losing in God's grace it's given to us regardless of our past or our mistakes or our story so I feel like that's probably it is the most amazing gift that we could ever receive and knowing that we have that without having to do a thing is the most amazing thing and that's what God has shown me through Twin Lakes and I hope that God has shown you that too.

Let's pray together would you bow your heads with me Lord I pray that we would be a church of Christianity Christ followers who are turning into Christ's image not churchy entity people just trying harder to break the board let us focus on the grace of God all our debts fully paid on the cross by Jesus Christ God's only Son and I pray that if anybody here today yet needs to receive your grace they would realize they don't have to be worthy in fact the point is that we're not worthy that right now they'd say father in heaven I receive your free gift of lavish grace made available by the sacrifice once for all of the Lamb of God Jesus Christ and may we continue to be a church of overflowing grace in your name we pray Amen.