Considering Our Pharisaical Hearts

I’m struggling with my sermon for Sunday.  I’m struggling because I know the sinful, legalistic tendencies of our hearts.  I’m struggling with communicating the truth in such a way as to reveal our idols/substitutes in a more concrete way without establishing “man-made” rules which we use to attack others or exalt ourselves.

In Nehemiah 13, Nehemiah returns from Susa to discover that Israel has broken all the promises and oaths they had made to God.  They were once again becoming like the nations, being assimilated, instead of honoring God with their money, time and relationships.  They were not providing tithes & offerings for the worship of God, they were breaking the Sabbath, and they were taking foreign wives.  They had lost their saltiness.

And so have we.  The Church in America struggles with assimilation- being squeezed into the world’s box, conformed to their values rather than conformed to Christ and His values.  We start to worship self and success.  Here’s a chart I put together to summarize it:

	Love God	Love of Self
Money	Joy in Christ => simplicity + generosity	Covetousness => status symbols + luxuries
Time	Boundaries + balance	Excess to fulfill my agenda
Marriage/Family	Kingdom building + character	Focus on beauty or economic advantage
Church Leadership	Biblical (gospel) principles	Business models (control)

We have a tendency to want to make this clearer so we can better know (we think) if we are being obedient.  This way we can establish our righteousness over our less obedient brothers and sisters.  This permits us to criticize them.  Sometimes they need to be confronted by their own worldliness- but I can’t be the standard by which they are measured.

We also do this so we can play the martyr.  I think of this primarily financially.  We can point to our simplicity- “see what a junky car I drive because I love Jesus”- to show how much more we love Jesus than our brothers.  We aren’t content to say “don’t covet, be generous and keep your treasure in heaven.”  We want to know what that looks like, and we start this Pharisaical process to gain credit instead of relying on Jesus, His work for us, and to work in and thru us.  Or am I the only one whose heart is so twisted by indwelling sin?