Part Six

I'm amazed by the comments I've received after the last few posts about , ”The Law”.  I've heard, “So am I just not supposed to do anything?” Or, “So I can just live however I want and God will just forgive me?”. And  my favorite, “Should I just embrace how bad I am and live in that, never trying to be better?” These are all great questions! And they all ask the same thing, “What do I do?”

At my house there are rules. Quite a few rules actually. Load and unload the dishwasher. Clean the kitchen, vacuum the floor. Be home by a certain time. Don’t be disrespectful to anyone in the family. Rules. Laws. A code we live by. But here is the catch,  if someone breaks the rules, which they are certain to do, they are not kicked out of the family. Watch this; the family connection is not by keeping the rules, keeping the rules flows from the family connection. That is HUGE!

Religion as a whole has always taught: law + obedience to the law=getting to God. By inference you can conclude then: law + disobedience to the law = not getting to God. This requires a lot of work to stay connected to God. And when you blow it by breaking the law you think, “Oh great, now I have to start all over.” Not to mention the problem of which laws must we keep? Because I may not commit adultery, but then Jesus adds I cannot even lust. That changes things for every man I know of. But what if we change the order of that first equation just a bit? Instead of law + obedience = God, what if we say: I have God + The Law = Obedience to The Law? Now that changes things doesn't it?

So if we say, “Jesus paid the cost for my sins so now I don’t have to obey the law.” We would be wrong wrong wrong! Jesus said himself in Matthew 5:17, “I did not come to abolish [the law], but to fulfill the law.” (More on fulfill later).  But if we say, “I must obey the law if I want to go to heaven” we are once again wrong wrong wrong! Paul said, “I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.” So Paul is saying it is an all or nothing proposition. So what do we do with the law?

A rich young ruler came to Jesus one day and the conversation went like this. . .

¹⁶ And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” ¹⁷ And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” ¹⁸ He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, ¹⁹ Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ²⁰ The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” ²¹ Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” ²² When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. (Matthew 19:16-22)

There it is right there. The same question that is in every one of our heart, “What should I do…?” I have been asked that question more times since starting this blog than ever before. We just feel like we need to “do” something. I mean this deal cannot be free can it? If Jesus is going to forgive my sins, then I need to pay him back somehow don’t I? I need to strive to be a better Christian do I not?

Well interestingly enough when the dude asks Jesus what should he do, Jesus gives him rules to follow it seems. Jesus says, “Hey man, you know the deal, keep the law.” And the young man says, “Done”. WOW! What a statement! Jesus says, “do these things” and dude man says, “I have”. Now I wonder if at this point Jesus is just kind of taken back. Like maybe Jesus has a “wow” moment himself. Or maybe Jesus just smiles wryly and winks at his disciple.  Either way look at the words recorded by Matthew, “All these I have kept, what do I still lack?”

This young man has been doing a lot of stuff. A lot of rule keeping. And by his own admission he is still lacking something. There is still something in him that is just not quite right. In another place this story appears in the Bible he says he has kept the laws from his youth. That’s a bold statement. But Jesus pushes further, Jesus says, “I want it all. And I especially want those things that you worship.” Now we are getting somewhere.

Let’s make some application and then next post we will come back to this idea again a little deeper. If the rules were meant to bring us closer to Jesus then why does Jesus always go to the ones who cannot keep the rules? And, if the rules were meant to bring us close to Jesus why is he so hard on the rule keepers of his day? One word; motive. It is your motive for keeping the rules that Jesus is getting after. Jesus doesn’t just want obedience; he wants you, all of you. The rich young ruler did not want Jesus, he wanted eternal life. He didn’t even seem to want God, he wanted eternal life. Jesus offered the young man himself, the Way, the Truth and the Life.

So why are you striving to keep the rules? Do you want to make sure that Jesus is on your side so bad things will not happen? Or are you keeping the rules because you want to follow Jesus so closely and look so much like him that you don’t want to miss a single point of obedience?  Because these are two drastically different things, one makes Jesus a means to your end and the other makes Jesus the end all to be all. Which is it?

We are going to keep going after this point in my next post. This is the most important part of the journey. But for now, let this sink in.