Progression

11.26.11

Matthew 23.19-22 19 You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21 And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. 22 And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it. NIV

If you follow the progression it goes from altar to temple to heaven to God’s throne and to God Himself on the throne. A gift given is to be given at the proper place; the progression follows from there all the way to God Himself. What’s interesting to me is all the way through chapter 23, Jesus points to God; and at the beginning of chapter 24, the disciples come right back to the buildings that made up the Temple area – guys, you’re missing something!

Because we are men and because we are fallen, we tend to miss that point, often. It’s not the church building that is sacred, it is God’s people who are sacred. And it’s really not God’s people who are sacred, it’s God in them Who makes them sacred. We spend a look of time and effort trying to make our church building(s) special when it’s really our relationship with God that is special and makes us special. And Jesus was trying to make that point with them. The Temple was special but only for a time; it was always the human heart that was special because that was the chosen dwelling place of God. We don’t go to a place to meet God, we only need to direct our thoughts on Him and the specialness is complete.

This isn’t a rant against church buildings. This is however a reminder of the true progression of everything that ought to lead us to God. Buildings – brick and mortar – don’t get the job done. Rings and licenses don’t make the marriage. Starbucks coffee doesn’t make friends. It’s focusing in the right way on the right person that makes life work. Effort is required but it is to only reinforce the message: you’re special. Jesus was pointing that out.

In some ways the Pharisees weren’t totally wrong: they truly felt they were only mere mortals in the presence of God. And it’s true, they were. Where they went wrong was they also felt they had to go to a lot of effort to get God’s attention and over time their focus became solely on the effort of trying to get God’s attention rather than God Himself. Through all their efforts, they had painted God into a distant place and had thereby shut the door on themselves to real relationship with Him: a concept that was totally foreign to them. Their relationship with God was all about their effort to impress God, not God Himself. Try that with your spouse and see how that works.

A friend of ours told us last night that her son’s girlfriend of several years had broken up with him because she just didn’t have feeling for him anymore. In my thinking that meant she grew tired of his efforts: which probably focused more on his making the effort, than it did on her. God had grown tired of man trying to make his effort the object of the relationship rather than focusing on Him. Our relationships do require effort, but the effort is to keep the other person the object of the relationship, not what we do or don’t do… does that make sense? Everything we do ought to be because of the Object of our affections – it’s the right progression, not our performance.