Works Religion vs Love Relationship

Turn to Mark 2:18-22, and here we’re going to discover a text that forces us to evaluate what our relationship with God is really like.

God, who is love, desires to have a close, loving, genuine relationship with you. All throughout Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, the idea of marriage is used as a metaphor to describe how God intends to relate to his people. Genesis 2, marriage is created as an embodied parable of Christ’s love for the church. Revelation 19, the marriage Supper of the Lamb.

Our problem, however, is that we don’t naturally love God, and even if we have been brought to love God through the Spirit, we have a tendency to drift toward an external, loveless religion.

The text we’re going to look at this morning demonstrates these realities. First, we’re going to see the human tendency toward external, loveless religion. Second, we’re going to see Jesus illustrating God’s desire for a joyful relationship with his people. And third, we’re going to see that these two mindsets are incompatible.

First, in this text we see a tendency toward external, heartless religion.

18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”

You see their propensity toward external, heartless religion in two ways: their religious exercises and their religious expectations.

First, their religious exercise of fasting. Now fasting wasn’t wrong. God ordained a fast in the Old Testament for the Israelites on the Day of Atonement, as they reflected on their sin. Jesus himself fasted 40 days in the wilderness. The early church fasted when before they sent Paul and Barnabas out of their first missionary journey, and before they appointed new elders, they committed themselves to prayer and fasting.

So fasting can be great. The problem comes when we adopt the form without the substance. Rather than loving God with all their hearts, fasting became an external act of religion to prove themselves to God and others. They had taken the four steps toward hypocrisy we mentioned last week.

Ignore my own sin. (their need of repentance)

Desire to be good.

Embrace external forms of godliness.

Feel okay.

Rather than listening to Jesus’ call to repentance, they committed to a works righteousness system. They were more concerned about the externals than about their hearts.

Second, you see how they tend toward external heartless religion in their expectations: Why aren’t your disciples fasting? They expected Jesus’ followers to fast. Why? They saw John’s disciples and the Pharisees fasting and thought - that looks more holy. That looks more impressive. Jesus, do that!

External religion is extremely popular. People love it. People are impressed by it. People will applaud it and ask for more. In fact, every time a person chooses their church based on the externals - the style of the music, the lightings and the graphics, they are giving into their impulse to prefer externals over genuine.

This is why, by the way, as a church we intentionally try to avoid flashiness. Flashiness can tempt people to actually believe the power is in the flash. We actually try to be pretty ordinary, so that it’s clear that the power is not the flash.

These people demonstrate their preference for external religion, and they demonstrate the common condition of humanity - a tendency to prefer external forms over substance. Of course, the problem with forms is that it’s really easy to go through the motions without the heart.

That’s what was happening with the Pharisees - the form of fasting, but no heart for God.

Second, we see in this text that God’s desire for us is a joyful relationship with him.

19 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.

Jesus asks them a question that had an obvious answer. They can’t fast while the bridegroom is there! In Jesus’ day, weddings were long, drawn out, celebrations, where day after day there would be feasting, sharing speeches, gift giving, and downright happiness. How inappropriate would it be for the attendants at a wedding to be downcast, refusing to partake in the joy?

Verse 20 is a bit of a darker note, there will come a day that the disciples will fast, and that’s when Jesus is taken away from them. This could either mean Christ’s death, or it could be his ascension. Either way, there will be an appropriate time coming for his followers to fast. Fasting can be appropriate when expressing longing, devotion, and love - though Jesus taught that it was never to be a public thing, but a private thing.

Again, fasting can be fine. The problem is when the outward form replaces the inward affection. According to Jesus, he, the bridegroom, is the center and the cause of this great celebration of joy the disciples experience.

Jesus gets to the heart of his teaching here. What Jesus is introducing is not a system whereby one approaches God through avenues of self-restriction, self-discipline, and rigid rule-keeping. Rather, he compares his relationship with his followers to the relationship between a bridegroom and the wedding guests. The cause of great rejoicing in all Jesus’ disciples is not that they can perhaps fast enough, or that they should work hard enough, it is Jesus himself. He is their good news. He is the cause of joy. He is the greatest treasure.

He’s flipping human tendencies upside down. True religion is not a system of rule and ritual, it’s a relationship of joy and delight! It’s not oppressive standards and suffocating expectations, it’s freedom and life and joy.

What Jesus introduces is this: true religion is fundamentally a relationship with Jesus Christ.

They can’t fast while he’s right there with him, because he’s their delight, and joy and treasure.

They will fast while he’s gone, because he’s their delight, and joy, and treasure.

True, living, vital Christianity is not about following rules, it’s about having a relationship with Jesus Christ. A relationship where you celebrate him because you know he is gracious, that he will save you. Who can have this relationship? Anyone who needs it.

So if you want salvation - a love relationship with the living God, all you must do is come to embrace Jesus. He befriends sinners. His death on the cross is to pay for the sins of sinners. His resurrection proves his ability to save sinners. He is alive right now, welcoming sinners.

Jesus himself said, “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” The satisfying relationship with God is yours through Christ. Your sins will be forgiven, your heart will be transformed, your destiny will be secure, and you will have a reason for rejoicing.

Third, external religion and joyful relationship are incompatible.

21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”

The old things in these two illustrations - the old garment, the old wineskins, all represent the way the self-righteous Pharisees thought about relating to God. The new things here: the unshrunk patch, the new wine, represent the reality that God has come in Christ to have a love-relationship with everyone who turns to him in faith.

Dutiful, heartless, external religion is not compatible with a joyful, free, loving relationship. Trying to have a loving relationship based on following rules is no relationship at all, it’s slavery.

John Piper has used this humorous example, and I’ll personalize it. If I showed up this Friday night and knocked on our front door, and when Ashley opened it and pulled out from behind my back a huge bouquet of flowers, and she said, “Oh, Eric, they’re beautiful! But why?” And I said, “Ashley, It’s my duty!” I think that would just crush the romance.

To take it further, if she said, “Thanks, we can remain married another week.” You might look at that relationship from the outside and say, “How romantic! He really loves her!” But the reality is that no love is involved at all, only transactions.

It’s either a relationship of love, or it’s a dead religion of externals. But they cannot mix. A religion that is based on your performance is slavery, not freedom. It’s not a relationship, and it’s not love. Galatians 5:1-2

Jesus invites us into actual freedom. Jesus says we have no right to walk around in the shackles of shame, we have no right to think that our misery makes us better people. Stop acting like your relationship is based on the quality of your fasting. Christian, you’re free from that. Your relationship is based on the love Jesus has for you.

Freedom is destroyed by addition, not subtraction. You lose touch with grace when you make a relationship with Jesus more about rules. You say, “What’s it hurt to add a little rules? Maybe they’ll help me be more holy.” Listen - they won’t. They’ll deceive you. Your self-invented holiness will puff you up. Jesus will become an abstraction, not a savior. And you’ll never feel like you’ve done quite enough.

J. Gresham Machen: “Christ will do everything or nothing. Either you earn your salvation, if your obedience to the law is perfect, or you trust entirely to Christ’s completed work. But you cannot do both. You cannot combine merit and grace.”

Jesus does it all, and does it all because his love, not your worthiness. You cannot have a relationship with Jesus while trying to prove your worth.

Living your life trying to prove yourself to God and people is exhausting, miserable, and joyless. If you want to destroy Christian joy, try mixing that which Jesus said was incompatible. Mix grace and works. Here’s the recipe: believe Jesus is a friend of sinners, but that he forces his friends to prove themselves. Believe Jesus does 99% of the work, but that last 1% is up to you.

Want true freedom? Believe Christ’s love is a free flowing fountain, gushing out toward any sinners who will come and drink. Believe your sin can’t dam it up. Believe it: “Jesus loves you. Not the super-spiritual you. Not the impressive you. Not the you with the mask on. The you-est you. The deepest you. The actual you. Yes, sinful, broken, real you.” Believe it!

But if you believe Christ’s love has to be cranked coaxed from him, you’ll turn to externalism.

You know what externalism looks like - especially when it takes root in a church?

An infatuation with impressive externals.

An inability/resistance to talk about the heart. Everybody is politely non-intrusive, doing just fine, wearing their happiest faces to church.

There is no messiness. Unhealthy churches are like a room cleaned where all the junk is just jammed into the closet.

Superficial relationships. Nobody knows anyone at the heart level. Relationships are genial, but superficial.

Lack of involvement beyond scheduled events.

Commitment to programs, not people. Commitment to ministry, not Jesus.

Growing disconnect between your public and private personas.

A commitment to keeping up the clean-cut image.

Full-blown hypocrisy.

Right now, we’re in a season that is testing whether or not we have embraced a form instead of the real thing. Our typical forms have been stripped away. If you’re left wondering what it means to be a Christian these days, I wonder if you really know what Christianity is. It’s not going to church. It’s a living, vibrant love relationship with Jesus Christ that spills into genuine love and concern of others. A pandemic can shut down forms, but it can’t shut down love, so if you’ve found that your Christianity has come screeching to a half, I wonder if your Christianity has been mainly external. If that’s you, Christ calls you to repent and return to your first love, a love relationship with Jesus Christ, joyfully serving his people, for the glory of God.

Let’s throw away the old wineskins of works righteousness, self-improvement. Let’s live in the joyful celebration of knowing Jesus Christ our Savior. Yes, we will fast in times of sin, mourning, sorrow, grief, or lament, but we will also feast, knowing in Christ we are forgiven, justified, reconciled, and adopted.