Changing the Rules of the Game

Suggested Reading: Matthew 15:1-20

I know it is shocking, but when they were younger my children would occasionally get into fights. One of the things they sometimes fought about was the rules of whichever game that they happened to be playing. They would be playing along, having fun, until one of them decided that the rules didn't work as they were and they would attempt to change the rules of the game right then and there. Most of the time, the rule change was intended to give the one making the change an advantage over the other one, which, in turn, started a fight. "That's not how you play the game!" the other one would yell or cry, and the fight pretty much fueled itself from there.

In the New Testament, Jesus accused the Pharisees of trying to pull the same kind of rule change with the way God wants us to live. Jesus pointed out how they violated God's command to honor one's parents by devoting to the temple the money they would have used to care for their parents in their old age. That gift to the temple, in their minds, freed them from the obligation to care for their parents. Then, speaking for God the Father, Jesus quoted the book of Isaiah and said, "These people honor Me with their lips but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commands of men" (Matthew 15:8-9, HCSB).

Many times, we do the very same things the Pharisees did, and we make up our own rules that we think nullify God's commands. Jesus gave us the example of the Good Samaritan who stopped for a man on the side of the road, but we tell ourselves that we don't have to care for that person because it is more important to be "wise" and not put ourselves in dangerous positions. Jesus prayed for and encouraged unity among his followers, but we decide that we can only be united with other believers if they hold exactly the same doctrinal beliefs that we do. Through the Holy Spirit, Paul insisted that we not demand our own rights when doing so might cause other believers to falter in their faith, but we declare that anyone who is offended by our innocent actions is simply dumb and not our concern. 

Every day, as believers and as local churches, we "change the rules" for our own advantage, so that we don't have to work as hard or so that we can have the things we want, coming up with our own little traditions that give us the right to ignore God's commands.  If we were honest with ourselves, we normally know exactly when we do this because the Spirit pricks our consciences, and we do our best to pretend that nothing is wrong. Sometimes, we even pray for God to send someone else to do what we know we should be doing.  But there are two problems with making up our own rules like that: 1) many of the lost people we are trying to reach know how we are supposed to live and our contradictory behavior communicates that God isn't real to us so God doesn't need to be real to them; and 2) when we ignore God's commands and follow our own rules, we end up hurting ourselves, just like cheating in a game often helps you in the short-term but then messes you up in the next round.

What are the rules you have come up with to relieve yourself of following God's commands? When you feel the Spirit prick your conscience, what rules do you spout to yourself so you have an excuse to ignore God's voice? There is a lost and dying world that needs to see us living life as God commanded, not to mention that we end up hurting ourselves when we ignore God's commands. Let's not come up with our own rules so that we get exactly what we want. Let's not be those people who honor God with our lips but whose hearts are far from him. 

Looking for Blame in All the Wrong Places

Suggested Reading: Romans 7:7-25

One of the frustrations of parenting is that nearly all children go through a phase where they blame their parents when they get in trouble. Instead of looking at themselves when they face consequences for hurting someone, they get mad at you for giving out the consequences. Rather than dealing with the fact that they lied, they get angry with you for calling them on it. The reaction is perfectly in keeping with human nature and, fortunately, most of us grow out of this phase. But even when we grow beyond this default reaction, it is a tool that we cling to when we encounter consequences we really don’t like.

Paul responded to a similar reaction to the Old Testament Law in Romans 7:7 saying, What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet (HCSB). Some people in Paul’s experience, because of their own rebellious nature, responded to the Law with a desire to sin and then chose to blame the law for their choice. They tried to argue that their own choices weren’t the problem but that getting rid of the law would get rid of their sin. The mentality rested upon a foundation of “if there are no rules to break, we can’t be punished for breaking the rules.” They fundamentally misunderstood the nature of sin. So rather than dealing with themselves, they chose to blame the law.

We experience a lot of that in today’s society and people are falling away from Christ because of it. The “rules” of the Bible are more restrictive than some people are willing to deal with and so they begin to think that the “rules” are the problem. One person I know, addicted to pornography, decided that his addiction wasn’t the problem and so he tossed out the relationship with God that told him it was. Another, engaged in a sinful lifestyle, chose to keep calling himself a Christian but also decided to toss out as “flawed and barbaric” the scriptures which called his activities sinful.

Now, if you aren’t a Christian, feel perfectly free to toss out God and His Word. I don't expect you to live according to a system you haven't bought into. But if you are a believer, if you have experienced the movement of God in your life and are now doubting because that relationship creates tension with your behavior, don’t toss out the God you have known and experienced just because your actions don't measure up. Ask yourself, is it more likely that the God you have known and experienced never really existed or that you are trying to blame anything but yourself for what you know to be wrong?

If you want to continue doing things you know to be wrong, have the guts to be honest about it. Don’t suddenly pretend God doesn’t exist or decide the scriptures which guided you to Christ must now be outdated and barbaric. Don’t blame anyone or anything else because you want to make your own choices.

The Stinky Trash Juice Principle

Suggested Reading: Matthew 15:10-20

I had a car once that I would use to take trash to the dump. Behind the second row of seats was a carpeted storage area like you might find in an SUV or a station wagon. On one particular trip to the dump, one of the trash bags leaked some nasty smelling juice that soaked into the carpet and made the car stink to high heaven. I tried air fresheners and Febreeze but the stench always returned until the day I actually cleaned the carpet and got the last vestiges of that nasty trash juice removed. Only once the source of the smell was dealt with did the stench disappear.

In Matthew 15, Jesus responded to a group of Pharisees who were concerned about the washing habits of his disciples by calling a crowd together and telling the people that they were defiled by the things that came out of their mouths and not by what went into them. The concept was a foreign concept, even to Jesus's disciples, who were so confused by the statement they asked Jesus to explain the "parable." Jesus answered, “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer. But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile you" (NLT, Matthew 15:17-20).

What Jesus was communicating was the Stinky Trash Juice Principle. When your life has a stench that comes out in the form of sinful behaviors and words, you can't eliminate the stench by trying to cover it up with rules and regulations that will make you more acceptable. Rather, those words and behaviors indicate that you have a heart problem and that stench - those behaviors and words - will keep returning until the heart is cleaned out. If you have sinful habits, you can't change them with superficial behaviors; you have to eliminate the source of the habit: the stain on your heart. Whether you love the wrong things, fear the wrong things, trust the wrong things, or have unforgiveness toward someone who hurt you, those heart conditions must be dealt with.

If you find yourself repeating the same sins over and over again, creating a new set of rules for yourself isn't going to help the problem. Creating rules is like hanging up an air freshener but never cleaning the carpet. Rather, search your heart. Determine where the behavior is coming from and seek God's guidance in fixing your heart problem. Don't cover up the stench in your life. Remove its source.

Zack Morris's Rules of Studying

Suggested Reading: Colossians 2:11-3:4

In the final season of Saved By the Bell, Zack Morris, the perpetual under achieving high school schemer managed to score 1500 out of 1600 points on his SAT test. Naturally, Zack managed to turn his score into an opportunity to spend time with cute girls who wanted help with their studies. Zack invited one girl home and began to tell her how he "studies." He told her they needed to lower the lights, close her eyes and allow him to rub her shoulders. He told her several things to do but none of them were intended to help her study. Everything he told her was intended to help him "score."

The Apostle Paul also told  us about a list of rules that don't accomplish what they are supposed to. Paul described a list of religious rules which he dismissed as worthless. He wrote, "These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self- denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires. Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth." (Colossians 2:23-3:2, NLT)

Paul was not saying that all of the religious rules were bad. Who can argue that avoiding sexual immorality or controlling your temper are bad? Paul was arguing that the rules themselves don't accomplish anything. Most of us knew many religious rules which were useless before we came to Christ. Rules don't change our behavior. Changing the way we think changes our behavior. Paul asks us what we think about. Do we think about things that make us sympathetic to sin or do we think about things that encourage us toward righteous living? Do we allow ourselves to be influenced by culture and media or are we intentional about choosing the types of film and literature that influence us?

What kind of things do you allow your mind to dwell on? Those are the kinds of things you will do.