Is Christianity all about Rules? – Rural Reset 8/21 [10]

Host: TJ Freeman

Summary: In this episode of 'Back to Rurality,' rural pastor TJ Freeman explores the struggle between the Christian's focus on a relationship with Jesus and the plethora of rules often associated with the faith. He shares personal experiences of growing up with strict Christian rules and discusses the challenges of guilt and pride that come with viewing Christianity as merely a list of do's and don'ts. 

Key Points:

• Two Ditches of Living for Rules: When a Christian tries to live out their faith by adhering to a strict list of rules they often fall into two negative camps: the guilty or the prideful. The guilty camp often struggles with intense shame. On the other hand, the prideful feel satisfied even though they too are missing out the freedom that comes from a relationship with Christ. 
• The Purpose of God's Law: God has given his people different commands throughout Scripture so that they would be a people set apart from the nations around them. God intends his people to image him and show off his glory.
• The Truth of John 8: Those who are truly Christians abide in God's word because they truly love God. 

Listener Takeaways:

•  TJ encourages his listeners to ask themselves two questions. The first question is "Do I love God's Word?", and the second is "Are you abiding in God's word?"
• Christians should pray and ask the Lord to give them a hunger for his word, motivated by a love for him. 
  
  

Connect with Us:

• Website: backtorurality.com
• Social Media: Facebook

Transcript

Have you ever wondered, why does Christianity have so many rules? Everyone tells me that it's about loving Jesus and having a relationship with Him, and being set free. So what's the deal with all of the expectations? All the things I'm supposed to do now that I'm a Christian, and the things I'm not supposed to do now that I'm a Christian.

If you've had questions like this, this is a great episode for you. Welcome to Back to Rurality. Well, hello, my name is T. J. Freeman, and I am the host of this podcast. I'm a rural pastor at Christ Church in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, and I know what it feels like to live in the middle of nowhere and have questions about what it means to follow Christ, and that's what this podcast is all about.

Today, we are asking the question, if Christianity is about loving God and having a relationship with Him, why does it seem like there's all this pressure to follow the rules? I struggled with that question. for a really long time. In fact, there was a time when I didn't want to be a Christian because I didn't want to have to follow all the rules.

I grew up in an environment where some of the rules were perhaps taken a little bit far. The expectation when I grew up was that you would not listen to music with drums. Certainly you're not going to play cards or be seen in the theater. It was that kind of environment. Very well meaning. 

 And the people who taught me those things were very well meaning and I understand how they kind of came to those conclusions. But I was thinking about following Jesus as following a certain list of rules. And I reached a point in my life, in my teens, where I just didn't want to have those rules.

And so instead of going to church, I started making sure I could go to work on Sunday morning. Instead of going to youth group or something like that, I had other things to do. The pressure of the rules was so much. 

But one summer I gave in and I went to Christian camp and there I heard a sermon that was talking about friendship with God and friendship with the world and explaining that you can't have both and I remember lying in my bed thinking, well, I really do want to be a friend of God.

I don't want to be God's enemy. But I also really like the friends I have here in this world. And I kind of like this lifestyle. I don't want to exchange the things that I enjoy that I, that I now think I'm going to have to give up for a list of rules, but. If that's what following Jesus means, then I'm willing to do that.

 So when I trusted Christ, I understood myself to be agreeing. to live according to a certain list of rules. And that had two negative sides to it. Now your experience may be a little different, but I think you can relate to these two negative sides when you think of Christianity as a list of do's and don'ts.

On one side is guilt. And I struggled with that a lot. You know that you're not measuring up. You understand the things that are on the list. And you have a sense that you're just not quite cutting it. That's an uncomfortable place to be. 

You feel really guilty, like if you miss a day reading the Bible. Or you don't have enough scripture memorized, or you've fallen into some sin, which, don't misunderstand, there should be guilt associated with our sin, but when you're living according to lists and rules, there's a weight of guilt that, that comes, not just because you feel like you've strayed from what God would have you to do, but you feel like Your whole faith is connected to your ability to follow the rules or not.

But there's a layer of guilt or a degree of guilt that I think is is extra magnified because you're so focused on doing the rules and Oftentimes when you're in that trap what you're most disappointed about is that you've let yourself down You've let other people who know you should be following these rules down And there's a degree to where you feel like you've let God down now on the other end of that spectrum The other danger is And this is what I struggled with as well.

When you are doing the rules well, you can assume the opposite. Instead of feeling guilt, you're feeling like, I think I'm doing a pretty good job. Now, maybe you'd never say it that way, but you do have this sense inside of you that all is well, because you can see that you're doing the rules well. And there's an especially dangerous condition that can creep up then, where you start to look at others and you judge them secretly in your heart for not following the rules as well as you do.

Maybe it even goes beyond that, it's not so secretly. Maybe you start condemning other people or talking about them behind their back because they did something that you know is outside the rules. So the danger on one side, guilt. The danger on the other side, pride. 

All of it, though, falls into this unhealthy kind of religiosity where you are actually more focused on the rules themselves, than you're focused on the Lord. Can you relate to that at all? Can you relate to struggling with feelings of guilt because you didn't do something right or you did something wrong, but a kind of guilt that's not associated with just wanting to please the Lord, but there's this extra layer there because you become so focused on the rules.

Or on the other side, have you fallen into pride and you felt satisfied with yourself because of the way you followed the rules? Or maybe you've looked down on others because they haven't followed them as well as you. 

And in between those two things there's even some confusion because sometimes we're going I don't know exactly what the rules are. I'm not sure which of these rules really comes from scripture or do they come from other humans. And that's really a big danger with making Christianity all about the rules is you start to weigh in with human logic on top of what the scripture says.

And that's a really dangerous place to be.

It's also often very unsatisfying as a Christian. When you're living for the rules because the law or the rules are not there to Satisfy your heart to fulfill you to bring you joy

the rules don't have to be any kind of power in your life. In fact, rules probably isn't the best term for them. But it is true that God does call Christians to live a certain way. So when you become a Christian, there are some things you need to put on or start doing.

And there are some things you need to put off or stop doing. And the reason for that is the same reason it's been all throughout human history. God. Calls his people to live in a way that is distinct. Distinct in a way that shows the rest of the world. These are my people. This is what they look like.

This is how they're set apart from the rest of the world. But we don't engage in the rules or the behavior for the sake of the behavior. That cannot become the object of our focus. Christ and his kindness for us and his love for us. That's got to be the object of our attention and where all our focus lies and when we're looking at Christ and thinking How can I?

Love him more. How can I? Treasure him more. How can I become more like him so that I can make him known more to the people around me? That totally changes the game. There's something of this kind of discussion in John here in John chapter 8, Jesus is speaking to some Jews and they're struggling with this whole idea of what it means to live in a way that's pleasing to God. Here's what Jesus says in John 8, 31. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, If you abide in my word, you're truly my disciples.

You'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free. They answered him, We're offspring of Abraham. We've never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say we'll become free? Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever.

The son remains forever. So, if the son sets you free, you'll be free indeed. I know that you're the offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because , my words find no place in you. I speak what I've seen with my father and you do what you have heard from your father. Ooh, those are fighting words.

They answered him, well, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you'd be doing the works that Abraham did. But now you seek to kill me. A man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You're doing the works your father did. They said to him, we were not born of sexual immorality.

We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me. For I came from God and I'm here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It's because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.

He was a murderer from the beginning, and he does not stand in the truth because there's no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he's a liar, and the father of lies. But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell you the truth, why do you not believe me?

Whoever is of God hears the words of God, The reason why you do not hear them is that you're not of God. So do you see what's going on in this passage? Jesus is talking about the difference between a real believer and somebody who's not genuinely converted and the mark of a real believer. is that they will abide in God's word because they actually love God.

So here's what I want to do rather than trying to go through and say, well, what are the rules and what things must I do? And what things must I not do? I think you're better helped to think about a passage like this and just ask yourself some questions. So that's all your homework is for this episode.

All you need to do is Prayerfully think about two questions and then pray something. So that's what I'm going to give you now as your assignment. Ready? So here's what you should prayerfully consider. Do I love God's Word? Just stop and ask yourself that question. You can kind of get a sense of that based on how you treat it, right?

If you love something, you treat it well. Boy, do I love cookie dough ice cream. If there's cookie dough ice cream in the freezer, it just calls to me. It sings a sweet song from the freezer all day long until I go to the freezer and pull it out and bring it close and dig in my spoon. There's no reason to get a bowl.

I'm gonna eat the whole thing anyway. I love cookie dough ice cream. If you love something, you have a hard time walking away from it, not being around it. You desire it and you go after it. If you love God and his word, you're going to notice. that you're drawn to it. It doesn't mean that you're like, you know, the equivalent of sitting down and trying to watch a TV show or something like this.

Don't make weird comparisons like that because reading the Bible is not something that's just going to be passive entertainment that your flesh is drawn to like everybody else. But there is a sense where you hunger for the Word of God and you carve time out of your schedule and you sit down and it gives you life.

And in that is a kind of joy that causes you to abide. It's a joy much better than sitting down and watching some show on Netflix or even having a lovely carton of cookie dough ice cream. Do you see that in your life? Really evaluate that. Wrestle with that a little bit. Second question to ask. Not just do you love God's word, but are you abiding in God's word?

God has given us more than just do this and don't do this in his word. He's told us everything we need to know about him. And it's beautiful what it tells us about God in there. He's told us a lot about ourselves and a lot of that's really ugly, but a lot of it's so sweet because of God's word. Who he's made us in Christ.

It's joyful to read about who we are in Christ. It just, stirs the soul, makes you want to sing. Speaking of singing, the Psalms is like the, the songbook of the Bible. Full of songs that declare God's praises. that recognize the weight of guilt and struggles and trouble and the human experience, things that we can relate to, and resolves them with the goodness of God and truth.

It's so sweet and beautiful. The Proverbs are full of wisdom. Many other books of the Bible fall into that camp as well. The Bible tells us so much,

but most of all, it connects us with God as we hear from him in a really beautiful and special way. that allows us just to abide. So abiding is saying, I treasure what the Word of God says, and I believe it's true, and I actually want my life to look like what the Bible says the life of a Christian looks like.

I want to know more about God. I want to do what the Lord wants me to do because I want to make Him known. I want other people to see Christ in me. Because that's what he saved me for. So am I abiding in God's word? Not! Am I listening to all this list of rules, doing these things, not doing these things, and just making sure that I grit my teeth and then do it?

Feel like, how could God love me when I'm not doing those things, and boy, God must really love me today when I'm doing them? It's not about that. And that's sloppy and messy, and I get that, because there is guilt when we sin, and there is joy in walking with the Lord. The point I'm trying to make, though, is notour faith doesn't rise and fall on how well we're following a list of rules.

Our faith says, God loves me, He's saved me, and He wants to use me. And boy, I, I owe Him my life, and I want to give Him my life. I want Him to have every bit of me. I want to be His. I want to be used by God. I want to know God. I want to be transformed into the image of Christ. And that happens as I abide in God's word.

All right, those are the two questions. Do I love God's word? Am I abiding in God's word? And then here's the prayer. Pray that God will give you a hunger for his word, motivated by a love for him. Can, you just do that? Can you just pray that God would help you, that he'll make you hungry for his word?

Like I hunger for cookie dough ice cream, or maybe you hunger for a good steak, or whatever it is you like. Hungering for God's word, having those pangs. I want it. And that hunger needs to be motivated by a love for the Lord. That's a prayer that the Lord wants to answer. And as you pray prayers like that, God is really kind.

to answer those prayers and to help us grow closer to Him. So, is Christianity all about following the rules? No, it's all about loving God, and that produces in you a desire to abide in His Word and to do the things that He's called us to do and to not do the things that He's called us not to do, but it's rooted In fact, it's, rooted isn't even a strong enough word, it's like cemented in the fact that you really love the Lord because he's given you a new heart.

You really want to abide in him and his word. You hear the truth, and you know what that truth does? It doesn't bind you to a set of rules. It sets you free. Living according to God's word is freedom, and the more you do it, the more you sense that, and it is glorious. This is an episode of Back to Rurality that is part of a series called Rural Reset.

We are walking together through 21 days that just help us get back to the basics of our faith. Do you remember Beachbody? I never really liked using this, but Beachbody has a thing called the 21 Day Fix, and I thought Well, if they're saying we can take 21 days and try to get our body toned, maybe we could take the same amount of time, 21 days, and try to get to a place where spiritually we're more fit.

So that's the goal for you and for me in this as we walk through this together. So this is the 8th episode in that series. It starts in episode 3. if you want to go back. We've covered things together like how do you know if you really love God? That's the first one. We've talked about how to know if you're a real Christian.

We've talked about reading the Bible and why you should do it. We've talked about praying. We've talked about spiritual gifts. We've even talked about what to do when God seems distant. So we're going to continue this series next week. When we come back together and we're going to be thinking about what do you do when you face temptation?

Thanks for listening to Back to Rurality. 

If this has been helpful, I'd be really encouraged if you could leave a rating and review in whatever app you're using to listen to this podcast, and we would love to see you over at facebook. com back to Rurality. So let's get back to life, back to Rurality.