People sometimes say to me, “Pastor I want to dedicate my child to God but I became pregnant out of marriage. The church I go to won’t do a dedication service, will you dedicate my child?” And, I should tell you, they’re not referring to the story of Mary and Jesus.
Others say, “One day when I get out of this bad relationship, I’ll go to church.”
Or, “I need to ask God for my son or daughter but I have to wait till I stop doing certain sins first because how can he hear me when I’m sinning.”
“God cannot use me until I overcome.”
“My sin is keeping God away from me.”
“I had my devotional every day this week. I also gave my tithe, therefore, I know I should receive a check for at least the same amount in the mail this week from a mysterious person.”
Through today’s sermon, I want to tell you that the god that religion or you have made and believe in may be keeping you from approaching and Having a relationship with the Biblical God, and that you may be putting your faith in you instead of in God.
And I will help you to see this through the story of the centurion who asks Jesus to heal his servant.
Read Matthew 8:5-8 and Luke 7:1-10
The first person that Jesus healed in Matthew was a leper, a person that because of his sickness was barred from participation in Israel’s worship and social life. The second one was the servant of this centurion.
This gentile servant of a centurion who for being a gentile could not worship with the Jews, have a social life with, or have any hope of God’s compassion, love or salvation unless they would become a Jew.
In this story, a big point to understand is that a good religious Jewish person would never enter the house of a gentile.
I. FAITH THAT HAS BEEN DEFILED BY RELIGION VERSUS TRUE FAITH.
Also, in the process of teaching how to deal with this awesome God that we have, neither the leper nor the centurion tells Jesus what to do. Both just plead their case and trust in the goodness of Jesus.
Matthew 8:2
2 And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, you can make me clean.”
Matthew 8:6
6 saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.”
Right off the bat, we learn that in dealing with God, true faith that has not been defiled by religion only pleads its case to God and lets God take care of the when and the how.
Though in Luke, the religious leaders plead the centurion’s case that He is worthy, he intentionally tells Jesus that he isn’t.
Faith that has been defiled by religion thinks God is moved by our actions or worth, but pure faith understands that God is moved from within.
Matthew 20:14-15
14 Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. 15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?
God’s purpose is to make us like Him, that we are moved from within to obey Him.
II. SELF MADE GODS BRING CONFUSION
The phrase, “I will come and heal him”, shows God’s willingness to help us.
It’s interesting how Jesus, the God of the Jews, constantly steps out of the box that they had confined him to and constantly breaks the walls that “His people had built.”
It seemed as the God that the Jews had constructed was nothing like the God who took them out of Egypt, took them across the Red Sea, loved them when they didn’t know Him, saved them when they did not want to be saved, fed them when they cursed Him, put a cloud above them during the day and a pillar of fire at night to warm them as they constantly complained.
Is the God that you portray to your kids the same God who has loved you through thick and thin? Which God do you portray to others?
Their God now only loved them, only loved the obedient to their rules, only loved the successful and the healthy. Their God could only love those whom they said He could love.
Jesus did not just come to die, He also came to show that He wasn’t and isn’t the God that religion or man’s system has portrayed.
Religion creates a God that fits the philosophy of the religion they’re trying to organize.
Religion tries to ultimately make you dependent on human authority as the avenue to God.
Religion will teach you that God can only work through the rules they create.
Religion ultimately becomes a mediator between humans and God to give us an understanding of God that makes us slaves of systems, organizations, and men, so they may profit from us.
This centurion had not been poisoned by that and that’s why he had this correct understanding of God.
What are some incorrect misunderstandings of God that this centurion had not been poisoned with?
That God can only work through a system to bless you, that God doesn’t deal with man in a direct way.
Example: Jesus’s miracles attributed to Satan because he didn’t abide by the rules.
That belief isn’t enough, you must show loyalty to human spiritual leaders for God to bless you or hear your case.
That only certain people have direct access to God.
That God is limited to only act in the ways and rules that human systems have set up for God. Otherwise, it would undermine the human organization authority.
That we are worthy as long as we belong to a system.
Now, human religion and organizations aren’t the only ones who create these faulty gods, individual humans do it as well.
We must have a correct understanding of our unworthiness and God’s kindness and desire to bless and do for beings who can’t do anything for themselves.
RELIGIOUS PEOPLE HAVE A PROBLEM WITH A GOOD GOD
Mary and Johnny and the broken plate
III. THREE THINGS THE CENTURION KNEW ABOUT GOD THAT RELIGIOUS PEOPLE DON’T KNOW
Greatness
I am not worthy that You should come under my roof.
When as a young man I asked God to reveal himself to me.
Power
Only speak a word, and my servant will be healed.
He understood the power of the spoken word, that if God says, it will be.
Authority
Matthew 8:9
9 For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.
He has authority over sin, over evil, over sickness, over-emotional issues, over tendencies, even over how you feel like or not like.
Conclusion: So today, I want to introduce you to the Biblical God:
That loved us when we didn’t love him.
That is working in our favor when we haven’t even prayed about it yet.
That His love for us made Him give His son.
Who wants us to come to him when we are heavy laden?
Who wants to sit and reason with sinners?
Who uses Cyrus, a Medo/Persian, who didn’t know God to free His people?
Who uses Nebuchadnezzar, an idolatrous, to make a law that everyone has to worship Daniels God?
Who uses a prostitute to help His people conquer Jericho.
Who uses a 15-year-old to fight a giant who was the war machine for the Philistines?
Stop worshiping the god that won’t let you come to the Biblical God.
Break down the walls that are Keeping God in and free Him, free him to save you in your sin, in your filthiness.
Let Him love you with your psychological issues.
Let him love you in all of who you are.
So that just as he loves you from within, you may love Him from within.
Only when you believe in a God who loves you from within, then can you love God from within.
Stop believing in the wrong god.
