How Does Religion Bounds Us? - Matthew 12:1-14

Sermon by Pastor Benjamin Chen

Passage: Matthew: 12:1-14

Pastor Ben shared in his sermon to the 1.5 Generation congregation at EFCI Christian Church on the topic of How Religion Bounds Us? He raised the distinction between following a religion versus having a relationship with our creator. “True religion is about our inner hearts”, he declared.

Back in the days of Jesus, the Pharisees were the most respected Jewish religious leaders where they obeyed the religious laws down to a T. However, the danger of such practice is that they inherited this believe of an expectation of perfection where if other believers fail by the Pharisee’s standards, they are condemned.

Pastor Ben explained the issue of following religious laws blindly from the passage where the Pharisees challenged Jesus that his disciples violated the Sabbath by picking up the grains from the field and drawing a parallel to our modern day church. One example he raised was that often times, some members  have an expectation of how others should dress or speak in a church setting and would judge the people who do not follow. Pastor Ben cautioned that when we look at what we can or cannot do, we often times diminish the element of grace.

The Second issue that Pastor Ben raised was when we expect perfection from others, it’s easy for us to categorize others as either good or evil without accepting one another. A danger of these expectations is that expectations tend to lead to disappointments, then followed by anger. By going through this thought process, it gives us an excuse to condemn others.

In closing, Pastor Ben challenged the church members the following question:
When we see a person, do you see the opportunity to help  or do you see an opportunity to judge?

阿班牧師在他的講道中跟1.5代的弟兄姐妹們分享宗教不自由的主題。他提出宗教和與神的關係兩者的不同也挑戰1.5代的會友們要用我們的真心來與神親近。在馬太福音的章節中，阿班深入的探討當時法利賽人在當時的宗教背景裡的地位和權威。但是他們把信仰法律化，也因此用宗教法律來論斷與他們不同的信徒。法利賽人在經節中控告耶穌的門徒違反安息日因為他們解了田中的麥穗，而這個動作在當時的時代算是工作的行為。

在多少時候，我們也跟法利賽人一樣，在教會中因他人的穿著，言行舉止，和對信仰的理解與我們不同，我們也因此評斷他們呢？

當我們無法接受人是不完美的，我們就會對人失望，而失望會造成憤怒。當我們以一種宗教的標準去看一個人的所作所為，神的恩典在我們的信仰中也相對的會減少。

阿班最後挑戰教會中的弟兄姐妹以下的問題：
當我們看到一個人，你會看到機會去幫助他還是一個機會去論斷他？