Religion vs Relationship
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2014 · 13 April 2014
This evening as many of you know today is Palm Sunday. The day, taken from the Gospels, where a whole city of Jerusalem threw a parade for Jesus. As Jesus rode a donkey into the city of Jerusalem, the people threw their clothes and palm branches in anticipation of His coming. Thus we get our word Palm Sunday, this day marked a time of celebration where Jesus was worshipped and praised.
This day is bittersweet for us because even as we read of the celebration that day, we know that Friday is coming. The sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross is coming. We know that many people in this same crowd will within a few short days exchange their words of praise to words of judgment. Shouting Hosanna, Hosanna at first and then later shouting “Crucify Him, Crucify Him”.
This evening I want to focus our attention on these two gatherings both of which focused on Jesus, but with very different attitudes and results. If you have your bibles turn with me to two passages one from the Gospel of Luke and the other from the gospel of Matthew and let us see what that tells us.
Let us start with Luke 19:28-38, “When He had said this, He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 And it came to pass, when He drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mountain called Olivet, that He sent two of His disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village opposite you, where as you enter you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Loose it and bring it here. 31 And if anyone asks you, ‘Why are you loosing it?’ thus you shall say to him, ‘Because the Lord has need of it.’”
“35 Then they brought him to Jesus. And they threw their own clothes on the colt, and they set Jesus on him. 36 And as He went, many spread their clothes on the road. 37 Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, 38 saying:“ ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD!’ Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Now compare that to what happened the following Friday in Matthew 27: 15-22, “Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to releasing to the multitude one prisoner whom they wished. 16 And at that time they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. 17 Therefore, when they had gathered together, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release to you? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” 18 For he knew that they had handed Him over because of envy.
19 While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him, saying, “Have nothing to do with that just Man, for I have suffered many things today in a dream because of Him.” 20 But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitudes that they should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. 21 The governor answered and said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” They said, “Barabbas!” 22 Pilate said to them, “What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said to him, “Let Him be crucified!”
How can people be so fickle where they praised and worshipped Jesus on Sunday and by the next Friday they asked for His crucifixion? The truth is that when you do not have a strong personal conviction of what and who you believe, you are easily carried away with whatever everyone else says or does at that moment. It is hard to go against the current, it is hard to tell others about your faith if everyone else is against it.
The great evangelist, Billy Graham, has been quoted many times as saying that the greatest mission field in our country to today are the people in our local sphere of influence – all the friends you know and the people sitting already in our churches. Now one thing that I do know is true is that many people know what to say, how the best way to say it, even how to act in it, but when the rubber meets that road, there is no personal relationship with Jesus Christ. No salvation - just empty words.
We see a perfect example of this in our two passages this evening. On Sunday Jesus rode on a donkey into the city with the people shouting praises and worshiping God for all the wonderful miracles they had seen. On Friday many of these same people are shouting give us Barabbas, we want him, crucify Jesus, crucify Him. Why this total change?
Well there are many possible reasons, but one simple reason is that their words did not match their heart. They possessed a casual faith, not a committed faith. They had religion but they missed a relationship with the person Jesus. They knew the religious rules but they had no idea who Jesus was. So how can we have a committed faith? How can we be real and sincere, consistent in all that we do?
Well this evening I want to offer you some keys to just such a faith. The first key is that a committed faith is not self-centered it is Christ-centered. This sounds obvious, but we often miss it. In America, we tend to say to God, “Hey God, here is my calendar, here is my agenda. Now I can squeeze you in here or here, pulling God out or turning to God only when it is convenient or useful for me. That is not real faith, a committed faith has Christ as a priority over everything else!
In Luke 19, the people praised Jesus as He passed by, but many of them praised him for two selfish reasons. First, because of His miracles. He had healed the sick, raised the dead. They praised Him because He was serving them. Second, because they saw in Jesus a way to be delivered from the Roman occupation. They wanted to be set free from Rome as Israel was set free from Egypt. Their praise was conditional with the attitude of “Jesus what can you do for me now”.
A few days later at the trial they saw a beaten and disfigured Jesus, a man who no longer looked like a deliverer or a conqueror. And as words were said about him, they bought into all the lies and quickly changed their position. For them it was all about me, me and me now. They totally missed the bigger picture that this was the Lamb of God that sacrifices Himself for the sins of all people who believe in Him and that only faith such as that is capable of giving us eternal life.
There is a legend about an ancient village in Spain. The villagers learned that the king would pay a visit! In a thousand years, a king had never come to that village. Excitement grew! The villagers all agreed to celebrate big. But, it was a poor village, and there weren’t many resources. Someone came up with a clever idea. Since many of the villagers made their own wines, the idea was for everyone in the village to bring a large cup of their choice wine to the town square, “We’ll pour it into a large vat and offer it to the king! When the king draws wine to drink, it will be the very best he’s ever tasted!”
You see every villager reasoned, "I’ll withhold my best wine and substitute water, what with so many cups of wine in the vat, the king will never know the difference!" The problem was, everyone thought the same thing, and the king was greatly dishonored. In other words the faith that they showed was for the benefit of other people only, so others would think that you wanted to honor the king. Only God knows the inside of your heart and all your motivation in what you do and if your deeds are not to glorify God, everything is useless.
Today, on Palm Sunday 2014 choose to honor our great King, Jesus Christ by giving him our very best, by withholding nothing, by giving Him our all. This does not mean that everybody should become an evangelist or a preacher. No, you can still do your work as you have been doing, but the question is where is your priority? What is it that takes up most of your desires or time? Do you really see yourself as a child of God who is constantly seeking to do God’s will? Are you really worried for all your fellow workers who do not believe to the point that you are willing to witness to them given the opportunity?
A second key is that you have a committed relationship with Christ. Many of those who gathered to throw their coats and palm branches onto the street and who shouted praises did so because it was what everybody else did at that time. At that one brief moment it became popular. Perhaps some began doing it with sincere motives, but others soon did it because others were doing it.
Later at the trial, shouting crucify Him was the thing to do. In fact for a brief moment it was the trendy thing to do to make a mass murderer and criminal their hero when they shouted we want Barabbas. In our own lives a committed faith comes only through a close personal relationship with Jesus Christ. One where every day is fresh and new as he personally directs our steps. In order to have a committed faith we must develop and maintain a personal relationship with Jesus.
A relationship with Christ means that we know Him personally through experience, through time, through communication and through trust. Only through experience can we claim a relationship, only through having spent time with Him under good and bad circumstances. Only through listening as He speaks through the Bible and through the Holy Spirit and through waiting on Him for His timing do we begin to know Him more and more little by little.
And only through trusting Him where faith is the only thing that sustains us, that gives us strength and that comforts us in those dark days where it seems that there is no hope. Only through that experience of His comfort where He says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Only through a relationship do we get to know Him, trust Him and learn to love Him. Not through religious rules but through a growing personal relationship!
And maintaining that relationship is crucial. We all are tempted to have other things take priority in our life, we all tend to slack off in our daily walk with Christ, we all are sometimes lazy in reading our bibles, but remember God is faithful even though we are sometimes not faithful. And our relationship with God affects everything else that we do!
A third key is that committed faith is not swayed by personal trials and crises. At the parade it was trendy to offer praise, everyone was doing it. But at the trial to speak out for Jesus was risky and possibly even life threatening. Many of us come to Jesus expecting everything to go well. Maybe some slightly bad but not too much of it.
So when the bottom suddenly drops out for us, when our finances disappear, when we find out that we have cancer, when our loved ones die, we often ask God why me? Thinking it is not supposed to happen this way. If our faith is based on our situations or circumstances, it will never be a committed faith. It will always be a casual faith or no faith at all. True faith is related to a loving relationship with God who never changes.
In my life I have gone to many big Christian events. Many packed large stadiums, where the praises for God rock the entire arena. When returning home while everyone is still glowing from the worship, it is easy to feel full of faith. But how about tomorrow, can you still be excited for Jesus in a world that is not praising Him but in fact is mocking and laughing and is often angry at God?
A committed faith takes the good with the bad, knowing that all we are ever promised is that in the midst of both our good and bad; Jesus will never leave us nor forsake us. He will stand with us. And He will use every experience for your good and His glory. He will use it to refine you, to shape you and mold you into the person He wants you to be. And yes that takes time and yes it is painful at times and yes His chastening is not always pleasant, but only through that do we really know that God loves us.
A story is told of a little girl who while walking in a garden noticed a particularly beautiful flower. She admired its beauty and enjoyed its fragrance. “It’s so pretty!” she exclaimed. As she gazed on it, her eyes followed the stem down to the soil in which it grew. “This flower is too pretty to be planted in such dirt!” she said. So she pulled it up by its roots and ran to the water faucet to wash away the soil. It wasn’t long until the flower wilted and died.
When the gardener saw what the little girl had done, he exclaimed, “You have destroyed my finest plant!” “I’m sorry, but I didn’t like it in that dirt,” she said. The gardener replied, “I chose that spot and mixed the soil because I knew that only there could this plant grow to be a beautiful flower.”
God has placed us exactly where we are now. We must trust Him. In the trusting we eventually see that He is using our pressures, trials, and difficulties to bring us to a new degree of spiritual beauty. True contentment comes when we accept what God is doing and thank Him for it even though we do not understand His ways. God always knows what He is doing and He wants to use us when we have a willing and trusting heart.
So let me ask you this evening, is your faith casual or committed? As we approach this week where our Jesus suffered incredibly for us, in a week where our sins, past, present, and future were the nails that hung him on that cross, doesn’t Jesus deserve your trust? Doesn’t He deserve total control of your life? Doesn’t He deserve a personal relationship with you? This week consider it all… and choose to give it all to him, Amen! Let us pray.