Sermon for May 16th (Legalism)

In the last few weeks, we’ve talked about a lot of things. We’ve discussed the Bible, why it’s important and how to read it. We’ve looked at the difference between what you are called to do by God and what God does for you. We’ve discussed the purpose of rules and laws and how they help you to avoid sin and show you your need for a Savior.

But all of this talk is really about one particular thing: giving you faith. God wants you to trust in Him, in His Word and in His purpose for your life. He wants you to hear how His Son Jesus died on a cross for you so that you might be forgiven. But when we start believing all this, it is important for us all to be aware of a big pitfall Christians tend to fall into: It’s called legalism.

When you start believing that Jesus Christ forgave all your sin, destroyed your death and saved you from a meaningless life you find yourself free. The chains are gone. You know that following the rules God gives isn’t going to save you or make you look more holy, but, surprisingly enough, you find ourselves living according to God’s laws anyway. It’s like you can’t help yourself. Once you know that you don’t Have to do anything to save yourself, you have a lot more time to take care of others and love them. As a professor of mine once put it, “now that you know that you don’t HAVE to do anything, what are you going to do?” Once you don’t HAVE to do anything you CAN do a lot of things.

Jesus explained once in the gospels that a good tree must produce good fruit and that a bad tree must produce bad fruit. When God starts working on you and gives you faith, you start following God’s will. It’s only natural. God doesn’t just talk—he transforms. You are a new creation. God has made you into a good tree, so to speak, and a good tree must produce good fruit. So, you may find yourself praying for help even though you never used to pray. You start caring for people in a way you never did before. You might even find coming to church “fun” despite the stories you hear from your unchurched friends.

A good tree must produce good fruit. On the one hand, that sounds very demanding, “What do you mean!? Do I HAVE to produce good fruit?” Well, no, you don’t HAVE to . . . but when you’ve been transformed by God’s forgiveness, you might just end up doing it. A corn plant probably isn’t too offended when a farmer comes at harvest time expecting it to have produced corn because that’s what a corn plant does, that’s what God made it to do. In the same way, a Christian is made and created by God to do good works. It’s not about what you are told to do anymore . . . it’s just the natural thing to do.

But as soon as you are freed from having to trust in your own works and abilities for your salvation, it’s easy to fall into a trap. You start expecting the fruit to come without paying much attention to the tree. It would be like going out into the field at harvest time and getting all bent out of shape when you’ve found nothing growing there (even though, no one ever tilled the ground, or planted the seeds, or irrigated). You can’t expect the fruit to come at harvest without paying attention to all the steps beforehand. But that is exactly what we do at times in church.

Many of you have gone to church your whole lives and you know that, when you come to church, there are certain expectations. Most people don’t think about these things much, but when someone who has never been to church in their entire life comes THEY notice. Maybe a visitor looks differently, or acts differently, talks differently or has a different background from most of the others at the service. Maybe they are struggling noticeably with some sinful behavior that you usually just don’t see much of in a church. And they feel judged because of these differences. Truth be told, they are probably being judged.

But why!? How can this be? Isn’t the church the place for sinners to come and hang out with others of their kind? Isn’t the whole point to be forgiven and to tell others about their forgiveness? I mean, if anyone in here was without sin, there would be no need for Jesus Christ and his cross. So then, how can we, sitting here in the pews, judge others as more messed up than we are?

I’ll tell you part of the reason: We forget that freedom only comes from Jesus Christ. We expect the changed life before someone steps inside the church doors. We expect the good works right away. But people don’t need our unfair expectations . . . they need to hear and experience God’s love, nourishment, and forgiveness. They need to hear God’s forgiveness just like you. A person needs to be given faith so that, according to God’s good pleasure, they might be transformed into a new creation. For apart from Jesus Christ, none of us can do anything..

As the body of Christ, we are supposed to know better. We know that good works don’t save anyone. But the temptation of legalism is that we expect people to follow certain rules and traditions that we’ve already been freed from. What is very scary, though, is that when we start expecting perfection from others, we are actually putting the chains back around our own ankles. We forget what forgiveness in Christ is all about, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

A professor of mine once explained that if I believe I am preaching to people who are already free to do good works on their own, then I will always end up trying to chain them up with rules and laws to keep them in line. But, if I believe that I am preaching to people who are already bound up in their sins, unable to follow God’s will on their own, then I will always seek to free them with the gospel of Jesus Christ. When people enter this church, shall we blame them for their bad choices or seek to free them with the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ?

In the gospel of Mark, Jesus spoke harshly about some people who had placed more importance on doing something a traditional way instead of following God’s commandment. It is our habit, as humans, to fall into this trap because it is comfortable. Some of you may have heard this old joke, “How many Lutherans does it take to change a lightbulb?” “Change!” And then there’s the story about a woman who was asked why she always cut off the end of the chicken before roasting it. She explained that that’s the way her mother had always done it. When she called her mother, her mother explained that she had learned to do it that way because HER mother had always done it that way. But when they called grandma, they found out that she had needed to cut off the end because her roasting pan was too small to fit a whole chicken. Jesus expects us to always be aware of WHY we do things, not just focused on HOW we do them.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that this just has to do with contemporary versus traditional or old versus new. Legalism has to do with the heart. Humans look on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. We have traditions for a reason and many are still going for a purpose. We do certain things at church each week that we think are important such as reading scripture, confessing our sins, hearing God’s forgiveness, receiving the Lord’s Supper and singing songs of praise—sometimes our traditions follow God’s will for our lives. Some people can get as addicted to changing things are others are to keeping them the same. Legalism tempts us to focus on visible and invisible rules rather than on the heart of worship.

What are you enslaved to? What prisons have you created for yourself and others? Legalism is an easy temptation for you and I to fall into, but, thankfully God has the key to unlock us from this prison. You and I enter the church in chains, but here is your key to freedom: in case you didn’t believe it the first time, I’ll tell you again. You are forgiven in the name of Jesus Christ. It may sound like a simple promise, but it is the power of God. You may trust in God’s power to transform your life, make you new and start producing fruit. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”