Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 111 | Religion or Relationship

Episode Date: May 13, 2019

People often say that Christianity isn't a religion but a relationship. Is that true? Copyright Blaze Media All Rights Reserved.

Hello, relatable listeners. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Happy Monday. Today is Theology Monday, as it is every Monday. Today, we are going to talk about a question I received about Christianity being a religion or a relationship. So we are going to dive into that. I've got a killer alliteration for you guys at the end that's going to sum it all up and explain really the core of my argument. You guys know that I love alliterations to explain things. They make me, um, really excited. Also, what was I going to say? Oh yeah. So I am, as I've told you guys, many times I am filming stuff for this summer right now so that you guys have plenty of content to listen to while I am gone for the few weeks. So my husband and I can just focus on each other and our daughter and really enjoying that time together. I, of course, I'm going to miss you guys, but not as much as I'm going to enjoy just kind of being with our family and chilling out. And I don't even have to really say anything about that because I know you guys are excited for me. And I know you guys, if I wasn't resting and taking that time, you guys would be concerned and you would be messaging me on Instagram being like,

why are you still working? So just know when those episodes come out, they're not live. They are being recorded currently. Also, a lot of the questions that you guys are asking me or suggesting for podcasts that I do now. So some of you guys have been asking me, okay, can you, talk about why you're a Calvinist. Can you talk about the points of Calvinism? Can you talk about women in the church? Can you talk about Christians and politics? All of these awesome evergreen topics that you guys are suggesting are topics that I've already planned to cover this

summer. And I don't say that to be like, stop asking. I'm just saying that as we're on the same page. And I'm really excited for the content that you guys are going to get because these big questions, I wanted to take a little bit of time to really tackle them and get into them. and I hope they're going to be productive and good for you guys and answer a lot of the questions that you have. They're big subjects. I'm really only able to scratch the surface in these kind of 30-minute episodes, but hopefully these thoughts will be percolated in your head. And by the time the summer is over, I'll be back and we can talk about all the questions that you guys have. So anyway, just wanted to give you an update on that. I'm a little over 33 weeks, which is really exciting.

So we're almost there. We're trucking. We're trucking. Okay, let's get into today's Monday's Theologies podcast. I don't know why I said it like that. It just kind of came out. Okay. So we often hear from people that Christianity is a relationship, that it's not a religion. We also hear that the term religion is really bad, that it is, we hear it kind of scoffed at that we shouldn't be saying that Christianity is a religion at all, that Jesus hated religion. And the reason why the Pharisees, we hear, were considered wrong and evil. It's because they were religious. So the question is, is this true? Is religion really this bad taboo word that Christians shouldn't use? Is Christianity or religion? Is it a relationship? Is it both? Is it neither? Is it possible to be both? Are the mutually exclusive? So first, let us define our terms. What is religion? So religion in a general sense is the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal god or gods. So that is the technical definition of what a religion is. I didn't come up with

that definition. It's the technical definition. A religion usually involves rights and rituals, has some kind of set of principles or a transcendent idea or some kind of being to follow. Religion has requirements of some sort or at least some kind of outline or group of suggestions. It's the system by which people orient themselves or a system by which people orient themselves to each other, to the world around them, to themselves, and often, most often, to some kind of figure or object or person of affection or adoration. And I say often in that last sentence, because sometimes it's an object that is being worship, but sometimes it's more of kind of like a concept, this a theory.

energy, this kind of intangible thing, like Eastern religion, such as Buddhism or Hinduism, focus on really concentrating on the metaphysical world. And I want to take a little detour for a second away from the main point of this particular podcast, religion versus relationship, or whether it's both. I want to take a little detour and then we're going to use this detour to come back to the religion versus relationship question. But I just want to make a note on the Eastern mysticism that I just kind of explained. So this focusing or concentrating on this higher energy or this metaphysical world that we are supposed to tap into, I want to take a detour because I think it's important to point out that that concept has become popularized in

the mainstream culture in America, as well as in some portions of mainstream Christianity in America. You'll hear people, Christians, non-Christians, talk about good energy. or energies and vibes and focusing on this inner self to really be reborn or renewed. And they might not use that terminology. But if you watch a lot of the TED Talks, if you watch some of the people that have specials right now on Netflix, they will use these ideas of being reborn or renewed by unlocking or unleashing something inside of you. A lot of this self-love stuff that we talk about so much on this podcast, what is really a lot

of self-worship has its roots, some of its roots, in Eastern mysticism, that your inner self has some kind of untapped power that can be relinquished through the repetition of certain phrases or rituals. And we've kind of Americanized a lot of it. We call it positive self-talk, or we call it self-affirmation. We call it these kind of routines that put us in the right mindset. But a lot of it, if we're very honest, is just superstitious. It's not pragmatic or logical at all. It's like the idea that you have some kind of magic box inside of you. And if you want to open it, if you want to unlock it, you just chant the right way or you say the magic word or you look yourself in the mirror and you just tell yourself that you're greater or whatever the

magic word is, it'll open up. And all of a sudden, you'll be confident and you'll be free and you'll be successful. You'll be everything that you are supposed to be and your potential will just go crazy and you'll accomplish all of your dreams. But I just want to be honest with you guys, as attractive as that is, because it puts the control into our hands and makes us feel like we can do something to really, to be who we really are and to find out our true authentic self. I'll just be honest with you guys. That's not Christianity. You are not going to find support of that in the Bible. You're just not. You want to know what's inside each of us, according to the Bible? It's depravity. A wicked and wretched heart. That's what's inside each of us. It is a wayward, a wayward heart that is meant to be

made right by Jesus. It is a lost soul, dead and decayed by sin. That can only be alive, made alive by Christ. So that's what we see when we look inside us according to scripture, not some magic box that is going to be unlocked if you say the right things and do the right things every morning. Now, that's not to say that there's not a place for discipline, that there's not a place for positivity, and we will get to what that means in just a second. And it's also not to say that Christians need to be self-loathing, that we need to be self-deprecating. That's not to say that we dwell on bad things and how bad we are all the time.

If you are in Christ, the reality is your identity isn't that you have something inside that needs to be unlocked by doing the things that, I almost said someone's name, doing the things that a certain motivational speaker tells you to do, your identity, if you are in Christ, is a new creation. The old has passed, the new has come, the Bible says. So when we are Christians, we should look inside ourselves and see Jesus, who is righteousness, who is holiness, who is everlasting peace and goodness. This is what gives us, so much confidence. Romans 8 says that we are more than conquerors through him who loves us, that nothing can separate us who are believers from the love of Christ. Nothing, no power in the

entire physical or spiritual universe can separate us from Jesus. That is where our confidence lies. So if you want positive vibes, if you want a ritual to unlock that inner potential, praise God for the gospel, for the good news that saved you, for the unrelenting mercy of the Lord that manifested itself in His Son Jesus Christ. And because of that, because of that gospel, you have purpose. Because of that, you are useful. Because of that, you are a part of the greatest story ever told, which is the story of redemption of mankind through Christ. First Corinthians 3.9 says that those who are in Christ are God's fellow workers. First Corinthians 1227 says, now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. Galatians 329 says, you are airs

according to promise. Ephesians 219 says, you are fellow citizens with the saints and the members of the household of God. So God has chosen you. God has called you, beloved, has elected you if you are a believer to be a part of his kingdom, not because you are good, but because he is good. And the fact that his choosing of us has nothing to do with us in our merit, in our goodness, in our deservedness whatsoever, points to the fact that God of the God of the universe has got us. Ephesians 312 says we have quote boldness and access with confidence through our faith in Christ we have access in Christ to the God of the universe think about in the Old Testament what it took for Israel to have access to God only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies after a series

of sacrifice and and rituals of making himself clean but in the New Testament Jesus became our high priest not just for the Jews but for the Gentiles also and gave us all access through him making us who by grace have put our faith in him clean and acceptable before a God. That gives us confidence. That is where our confidence comes from. So the gospel of Christ is much better than any fleeting good feeling or good energy or zen or self-care routine or self-love mantra. It's better than any good feeling that any of those things can give you.

These things are pagan and origin. Now, that does not mean that we don't steward our time and our body. as well. That doesn't mean that we don't rest as God calls us to rest. That doesn't mean that we beat down on ourselves. That doesn't mean that we are, like I said, self-deprecated. It means that we derive our confidence, our joy, our satisfaction from the one true God and what he has done for us, not from ourselves or any kind of superstitious rituals or mantras. we have unique personalities, yes, we have unique strengths. And all of that is wonderful. God made us that way. He rejoiced in making us that way and knitting us together as Psalm 139 says, in our mother's

womb. We are all beautifully and wonderfully made. And all of these unique things about us make us a unique member of the body of Christ. And they are not recognized to puff ourselves up and to tell us how great we are and to tell us how different we are, but to contribute to the unity of the body of Christ, the building up of the body of Christ, the needs of the saints, as the Bible says, for the glory of God, not for our own glory. And Philippians 4-8 also tells us how our minds are supposed to operate, how the renewed mind operates the things that we dwell on. It's not more self-talk. It is this. Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure. whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything

worthy of praise, think about these things. So this is what gives us assurance. This is what gives us confidence. So don't buy into the lie that there is some kind of good meshing or melding of mysticism, which is essentially focused on yourself and Christianity of the Bible, which is focused on denying yourself and making God and glorifying God in everything that we do. So don't make that mistake. You're going to see it a lot. And we've talked about this in one form of the other and talking about the lie that you are enough, talking about the lie that you just got to love yourself more before you

can love other people. We've talked about these lies in the past. You can look at, I can't even list all of the past episodes in which we've talked about these lies and said what the Bible has to say about them. and there's a lot of people that push back really hard. And I get emails and comments and people saying, no, all of this stuff is biblical. You know, God wants to, wants us to take care of ourselves and all this stuff. And I think I've made enough caveats for you to realize that I'm not saying that we should just let ourselves go in the sense that we shouldn't care about, we shouldn't care about anything at all.

I've already said we should steward our time and our bodies and everything that we have well. we should rest according to the will of God. We should do all of these things. But at the end of the day, it is God who takes care of us. It is God that we worship. It is God that gives us our confidence and our contentment and our satisfaction, not ourselves. That's the point.

So all of this really transitions well off of our detour away from mysticism back onto our main road of religion versus relationship. Christianity is, by technical definition, yes, it is a religion. Of course, James says that pure religion is taking care of the widows and the orphans. And so it's not in and of itself, this horrible, dirty word, it is technically a religion. But it is not, here's the distinction. And I think this is what people are trying to say when they say Christianity is not a religion. I think this is what they're trying to say.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. It is not a religion like other religions. It is like no other religion. What it offers is so much bigger, so much better, so much, so much different than what any other religion can give you. And in our detour, I actually outlined why, but here are the distinctions between the Christian religion and all other religions. So are you ready for my alliteration? I know I said it was at the end. This is kind of halfway. Okay, get excited. I love alliterations. The Christian religion, unlike any other religion,

is one of reality, reconciliation, and yes, relationship. There's actually a lot of other R.E. words that I could just keep going with. I could like construct probably a whole paragraph because when you think about it, there are a lot of words that start with RE like renewal, like regenerate, all of these things that have to do with Christian. Okay, I'm not even going to, I'm not even going to get into all of that of why I pick these words. But here we go. Reality, reconciliation and yes, relationship, all of these things define the Christian religion and what makes it distinct and regenerative. Okay. So number one, first, the Christian religion is real. So first was reality. First, the Christian religion is real.

So I'm speaking to Christians here. So I think I'm okay on using the Bible as the basis for what is real and what is not. I understand people who are not Christians are like, well, why are you going to the, that's just circular, that's just circular reasoning. Why are you going to the Bible to say that Christianity is real? I don't believe in the Bible. But as Christians, we believe that the Bible is our ultimate and anerent source of truth and wisdom. And the Bible says that the God of the Bible is the only God that exists and he is self-sustaining, that he created everything, that his rule is absolutely sovereign, and that nothing, nothing escapes his control. And so I am speaking specifically to Christians who have bought into this crazy lie that they think somehow that the Bible has

justified relativism. There's another RE word, has justified or kind of condones the existence or legitimacy of other religions as well, as long as we just love each other and are really nice. But the Bible doesn't give us that option at all. It's very clear. If we go all the way back to Exodus, we could probably go back even further than that. But I think this is a good first example. Exodus 314, when God is speaking to Moses, I am who I am, he says. And he said, say this to the people of Israel, I am, has sent me to you. That's it. I'm self-sustaining. I'm self-existent. I was here for all of eternity. I am here for all of eternity.

I am suspended in the eternal. Now I am. A second example, Isaiah 46 9 through 11, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose, calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken and I will bring it to pass. I have purposed and I will do it. That is the power and the authority and the absolute sovereignty of God right there. He is the only one. He is the only true

God. There is no other and there is no one even like him. Not even any God liturgy that people come up with in their own mind. That's what every God is besides the God of the Bible. the God that we just read about in Isaiah. It's a God, little G, constructed from man's minds. No God that has even been constructed by man's minds is even like God, he's saying. Also, the other thing here is the other example. Sorry, I had a hard time speaking for a second. Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, God made flesh.

Sitting at the right hand of the Father, the judge of the living and the dead, says this in John 146, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father. except through me. Then about this Jesus, in Colossians 1, God through Paul says, he is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation, for by him, all things were created. In heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.

Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things. And in him, all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the first. born from the dead that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven,

making peace by the blood of his cross. So we even got reconciliation thrown in there, which is going to be our next point. But this is talking about the reality of God and the exclusivity of the God of the Bible. So again, I understand. If you are not a believer, you're saying, well, this isn't sufficient evidence for me. Well, my prayer is that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened so that you can understand and see the hope to what you've been called. But even more so to those who identify as Christians who have bought into the lie of relativism about the equal legitimacy of a variety of faiths. The Bible, I want to reiterate, just doesn't give us that option. They're not all the same God.

They are not even similar gods. there is one God according to our only source of truth, which is his own word. Second, Christianity offers reconciliation in a way that other religions do not. So second is reconciliation. I've said this before. Every religion tells you how to get to God. So if God is up on this mountaintop, every other religion says, here's how you get to him. Here are the steps that you need to take to climb up the mountain.

Good luck. If you don't take these steps and you don't get there, well, then that's, That's sad for you. I'm really sorry, but this is what you have to do. These are the rules that you have to follow. This is how you have to clean yourself up. This is how you have to earn your way to God, climb your way to the top of the mountain. Christianity is different than that.

Christianity says, actually, no, you are down in the valley, completely dead in your sin, completely incapable of pleasing God on your own. So God says, I am going to come down the mountain to you. I am going to get off my throne. come down the mountain in the form of Jesus Christ, who is going to make you alive in him and new and now eternally pleasing and acceptable to me through this thing called reconciliation. So reconciliation in theological terms means exactly what, of course, in a much bigger way, but means exactly what it means and not theological terms.

So if you have a rift with a friend, if you're estranged from a family member, if you're at war with an enemy, if you're at odds with anyone, and then you make peace, with them. You become no longer enemies and you come together. You make an agreement to no longer be at odds with them. You are reconciling to them. It's not just to agree to disagree, but it is by definition to restore friendly relations with or be in harmony to make consistent with the other. That is the definition of the dictionary gives us of reconciliation. So the Bible says that we are without Christ enemies of God. So there is no in between. If you're without Christ, it's not like some of you are just where some of us are just good people. apart from Christ and God, like, kind of still has some affection for us and we're like on good

terms with God, like even apart from Christ, that's not the option that the Bible actually gives us. The option that the Bible gives us is that either you are in Christ and friends with God or you are not of Christ and you are enemies of God and completely dead in your sin. So if you can imagine reconciliation with an enemy that still hates you, that is still warring against you, that has no interest in making peace with you whatsoever, and then you offering peace to them and reconciling with them, that is what happened when God reconciled himself to us through Christ. Romans 510 through 11 says, for if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more. Now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life?

More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we now have received reconciliation. So God, by grace, Ephesians 2 says, offered Jesus as a sacrifice to reconcile us while we were yet enemies to himself. Can you imagine? Can you imagine doing that yourself? Can you imagine extending reconciliation dying for reconciliation, sacrificing something like that in reconciliation to someone who hates you and wants nothing to do with you and has shown you no signs of wanting peace or repentance. That's who we were. And Christ, and God still sent his only son to die for us. He didn't have to. He had every right to say, you are my enemies now and forever. But in his mercy, while we were yet sinners, the Bible says Christ died for us, making reconciliation between a

perfect and holy God and an imperfect and unholy and an unwilling people. He offers peace and unity with him in spite of just how wretched we are and how little we deserve his love. No other religion offers that. No other religion offers that. No other religion says that you can do nothing to please God. You are hostile to God. You are enemies of God. You are unrighteous.

You are depraved. You deserve only God's wrath. And instead of requiring sacrifice from us, this God instead loves us so much that he sends his only son to die for us. pay our debt to wipe our slate clean, to declare us forgiven, and then to adopt us through his son as sons and daughters. We become his heirs. We become his co-labors. We get adopted into his family. We become citizens of God's kingdom. He is now our father and our king, and we will live in eternity with him. Why? Not because we are good, but because God is unbelievably good. He is so good

that we can't even just, we can't even fathom how good he is and how much he loves us. We don't, we don't even know. Our finite minds really cannot wrap around that. No other faith gives us this kind of reconciliation to a perfect God that is not our own doing, as Ephesian says, but it is a free gift of God. No one offers grace like the God of the Bible. No one offers redemption and reconciliation like the great I am. So the second point, the second reason why Christianity is different is because of reconciliation.

And the third distinction in Christianity is that it offers, yes, relationship. Now, this does not mean that Christianity is not a religion, but that in this religion, the only true religion, the only religion based on reality, the only religion that offers free reconciliation is also the only religion that offers a full relationship. with the God of the universe. Why is it the only religion that offers this? Because it is the only religion that takes Jesus, the Son of God at His word, that he is the only way, the only truth, the only life, and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. But in Christ, we have access to the Father. We are children of the Father. We are co-workers with the Father. We have a relationship with the Father because of Christ.

The most important commandment Jesus tells us is this, love the Lord your God, with all your heart and all your soul in all your strength. John 1627, Jesus says, for the father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. There's love between God the father and his children. This is not just some ritualistic religion in which we make sacrifices in the hopes that God isn't going to smite us, but by his grace through Jesus Christ, we have a very genuine, a very real, a very trusting and trustworthy, loving, intimate relationship with the King of Kings. And that's a miracle. That's amazing. He cares for us. He knows our needs. Jesus says in Matthew that we shouldn't worry about what we're going to wear or what we're going to eat because our father already knows that

we need all of these things. He has all the hairs on our head already numbered. He closed the lilies of the field. Jesus says, and how much more valuable are we to him than they? And that's a rhetorical question. Jesus knows the answer. It's a lot more valuable. Matthew 630, but if God sewed the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, oh, you of little faith? So this is a relationship. It's a beautiful, loving, gracious, kind relationship, a relationship that depends on his faithfulness, not on ours. Now, often people describe the worldly definition. Here's the whole kicker. Here's how we're going to end. This is important. I feel like

this summarizes everything that we just said or finally maybe gets to the point. Often people ascribe the worldly definition of relationship to our relationship with God. They use that as an excuse not to regard God as wholly and powerful. This is a symptom, I think, of what we kind of talked about last Monday on the episode that I titled messy or unholy when we talked about the danger of this so-called messy Christianity that glorifies in a rebellion in the name of relatability. So in the name of also vulnerability and authenticity, people abandon reverence and fear of God saying, well, this is what a relationship is. But the Bible tells us something different. The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The Bible says that we should

work out our salvation with fear and trembling. The Bible tells us to be holy as God is holy. So our relationship with God isn't one where we just shake our fist at him or we complain to him or we pretend like he exists for us like a genie in a bottle or a motivational speaker that he has to live up to our standards of a really good friend, like some kind of gal pal that constantly tells us how awesome we are. That's not what the relationship with God looks like according to the Bible. So here's the deal. Here's the deal with a Christian relationship with God, which does exist and is a beautiful part of being reconciled to God through Christ. Here's the deal.

Are you ready? Having a relationship with God doesn't change God. It changes us. So having a relationship with God doesn't change God. It changes us. Having a relationship with him doesn't change his nature. It changes our nature. So I think a lot of people believe that having a relationship with God means making him more like us,

rather than making ourselves more like him. It's meant to, the relationship is meant to make us holier, meant to make us kinder, more merciful, more in awe of who he is, more reverent, more pure. That's what sanctification is that it is accomplished through this reconciliation, that it is accomplished through this amazing relationship that we have with God. A relationship with God doesn't lower God to our standards. It lifts us to His, which is Christ-likeness, which is worked out in us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 413 through 15.

God through Paul says, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried out by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness, deceitful schemes, rather speaking the truth in love. We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ. So in our relationship with God, we become more like Christ. God doesn't become more like us. We see this instructed by Jesus when he tells us how to pray in Matthew 6. He says, pray then like this. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day. our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. No one is closer to the Father than Jesus, considering that

Jesus is Himself God. And Jesus' prayer, as we see reflects that of both a child and a servant, a child asking for provision and protection, and a servant paying respect to his king and asking forgiveness. So that is our relationship to God, as both. a humble child and a grateful servant. That's the distinction between the religion that is a true Christ-like relationship, or the relationship that is a true Christ-like relationship with God. And the one that I think a lot of Christians advocate for, which is more just like the gossipy relationship that you might have with some of your friends, that doesn't actually

reflect a relationship that is demonstrated by Christ in the Gospels, one of reverence and fear and awe and gratitude and humility. Yes, it is intimate. Yes, it is trusting and loving and all of these wonderful things. I mean, the Bible says we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in Him. So we get to approach God with boldness through our faith in Jesus Christ. That's amazing. But that, again, doesn't change the nature of God as King of Kings and Lord of as Alpha and Omega. It changes who we are. So that's what I wanted to distinguish today. I hope that all of that made sense. If you have any questions or comments,

feel free to email me, Ali at the Conservative MillennialBlog.com. Make sure you subscribe on YouTube. If you love this podcast, share it with your friends. Leave me a five-star review if you so desire. Love you guys,

and I'll see you here on Wednesday.