Preached in Markham Baptist Church, March 25, 2007

In the closing chapters of the New Testament book of 2 Timothy the Holy Spirit paints a dark picture of the church in the last days.  In Chapter 3 of 2 Timothy (verses 1-5) we see the church He is talking about.

And as we go through this list we find it easy to think of examples of other Christians and churches who are just like this.  That pastor in Toronto living in a million dollar home and his two sons on staff also living in million dollar homes while his church hardly sends any money to missions.  That large Canadian denomination that has watered down the truth about Jesus Christ.  We can think of all sorts of examples. 

But Scripture never compares itself to a rearview mirror through which we are able to understand others and point out the faults in others.  It is rather, compared to a hand mirror into which we are to look intently in order to examine ourselves.  (See James 1:22-25). 

So instead of saying, “Yes, this describes so-and-so,” or, “This describes that church, that denomination,” we need to ask, “Does this describe me?” And as we conclude our series entitled Intimacy with God there is one attribute described here that I think we must focus on – it is one of the most  disturbing attributes in this list.  It is the last one in verse 5 – “Having the form of godliness but denying its power.” 

For as we read through Scripture we are given example after example of this very sin and again and again we see people doing all the right things but still not having hearts that love God, desire God, or want intimacy with God above all else.  Again and again we see prophets, priests, kings and in the New Testament, Pharisees, all having a form of godliness but denying its power to convict, encourage, transform, bring renewal, healing and service to change a life and this world. 

And we see God over and over again being angry with His people for this very sin – having a form of godliness but denying its power. 

You think people outside the church complain about Chistians who have a form of godliness but deny its power? They don’t use that language – they complain that the church is full of hypocrites and so on. If you think they complain, well, you should know it tears God apart.  Scripture is clear – this breaks God’s heart.

It breaks His heart, because it is such a deceptive sin.  You may think you are close to God while all the while you are very far from God! And I think this is particularly why it breaks God’s heart and why it is such a dangerous sin.

This past week I had you study in your daily devotions an example of this very sin in Malachi chapter 1:6-10.  God says, “Hey, I am your father and master, but you aren’t honouring me.”

And the people reply, “What are you talking about?  Sure we are.  We’re offering the sacrifices, we’re doing the right things.”  And to be sure, it is so easy to have form of godliness but deny its power when a system of worship is introduced and practiced. 

As we have examined the tabernacle and all the stipulations and stations – first the bronze altar and the sacrifices associated with it, then the bronze wash basin – then we can go into the Holy Place and see the three pieces of furniture there.  We’ve got to make sure the showbread is new every Sabbath, the altar of incense needs to be lit every morning, the oil for the golden lampstand needs to be renewed every evening.  And once a year we have to offer the right sacrifices so we can enter into the Most Holy Place.  

And the system is all there.  It’s cut and dried.  If we do this and offer that then our relationship with God is good.  We’ve done our part and now God needs to do His part.  It’s simple when there’s a system in place.  But a religious system ALSO makes it very easy to have a form of godliness while denying its power.

And make no mistake - we have religious systems in our day.  Generally speaking, the system varies according to your age.  Generally speaking, for those of us who are older, the religious system includes loyalty to a denomination, loyalty to a theological view point, tithing, Bible study, worship on Sunday morning, mid-week prayer meetings, proper reverence toward God, proper dress and attitude on Sunday morning.  All good things.

If you are of a younger generation your religious system might be different.  In fact, your religious system could be that there is no system.  You reject the religious systems of your parents, but that rejection has become a religious system for you. So, if your worship experience does not include some form of rebellion against the perceived religious system of the day then you feel you really haven’t experienced true worship that is so systematized.  So you make your rejection of a religious system into a religious system. 

Here’s the difficulty – none of these things is wrong, but here’s where it becomes a sin – whenever we begin to deify a certain action, ritual, behaviour or idea, we have on our hands a form of godliness without the power.  We can even deify anti-ritual.  I’m not going to take part in that ritual because it is just going through the motions and I’m going to demonstrate my superior relationship with God by not participating in that ritual.  Whenever we deify our actions – whether they participate in the religious norms of the day or not – we are guilty of having a form of godliness but denying its power.

You see, I don’t think the answer to this sin is for us to get rid of all religious rituals.  A little later in chapter 3 of Malachi, God calls the people to tithe – that is, to give ten percent of their income.  It was a religious system that God put in place.  God does not do away with the ritual, with the system.  That was not the problem. Religious rituals can be very helpful in our desire to be intimate with God. 

The danger is not in the system – the danger is with the heart. So we come back to our text.  And the people say to God, “What are you talking about?  We do everything by the book.”

And God says at verse 8 of our text, “No you don’t.  You bring blind, crippled and diseased animals to the sacrifice! Is that not wrong?”

It’s a rhetorical question.  We know from our study of the tabernacle that indeed it is. God says over and over again that only the best animals – those without defect are to be offered. (see Leviticus 1:3, 10; 3:1,6; 4:3, 28) 

And God continues, “Try offering them to your govenor!”  Pretend the Premier of Ontario Mr. McGuinty is coming to your home for dinner.  Do you go down to the freezer and pull out 2 McCain frozen dinners?  Potatoes, peas, chicken in a delightful cream sauce. 

No!  You go out and buy a nice roast and you make Yorkshire pudding and you peel the potatoes and mash them by hand.  And you set the table all nice.  You do your best.

Well, the people weren’t giving that to God.  They were going through the motions – halfheartedly saying, “This will do.  It’s not the best we have but it will do for God.”  God is so upset that at verse 10 He says, “I wish someone would just shut the doors of the temple so that no one would light useless fires on my altar!”

The people had a form of godliness but denied its power and God is hearborken.  And says, “That’s it. I’m not going to accept your offerings - you’re simply going through the motions.  You do not wish to be intimate with me, you take no pleasure in me, so I take no pleasure in you.”

Now understand – God is not primarly complaining about the offerings.  That is not the problem. The problem is with the people’s hearts.  Turn to chapter 2:1 there we read, “And now, O priests, this command is for you. If you will not listen; if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name [the NIV puts it better – ‘If you do not set your heart to honour my name’] says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse on you and I will curse your blessings.”

Do you see?  The problem is not so much with what is being offered but with the heart of the one who is bringing the offerings.  They were not setting their hearts to honour God and as a result they were bringing offerings that were diseased and sick. They were technically offering right sacrifices – but they were really cheating God.

And this is why, for me, this is the most disturbing of all the sins listed in 2 Timothy 3.  For as I look in the mirror called Scripture I have to ask myself , “Do I simply play act this Christian thing – Do I truly long to honour God above all?  Do I truly want to be intimate with God?”  I’ve shared with you that I find it hard to be intimate with other people – do I really want to be intimate with God?  It is so much easier to go through the motions of a religious system  - having the form of godliness but denying God’s power access to all parts of my being to use me, change me, bring glory to his name.

And there is a part of me that says no.  That part of me that is scared of God and doesn’t want Him to see the blackness of my heart.  That part of me that is fearful of His power and holiness.  And that part of me says, keep playing the game.  Don’t let God in.

I mentioned that as you read through Scripture you come across person after person who has a form of godliness but denies its power.  But it also needs to be said that we discover some other people throughout Scripture who have this intimate relationship with God – who are genuine in their devotion to God, who are true in their confession of God and as you read their stories your heart leaps and says – I want that for myself.  They are men and women who unhindered by the religious systems of the day.  They have a determined spirit about them. They have one goal and that is to be close to God.  There is no pretentiousness about them, no play-acting, just outright devotion to God – it didn’t matter what others said or felt.  They were focused only on having an intimate relationship with God.  Here is a woman who was suffered for 12 years – bleeding externally, under the care of many doctors never getting better, only getting worse and she risks everything – she knew she wasn’t to touch anyone.  She knew she was unclean, she was to keep her distance, it was the law – but she risked everything just to touch Jesus. (see Mark 5:25-34)

Here is another woman who took the most expensive perfume and poured it over Jesus’ head.  The people said, “What are you doing?  That could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.”  But she did it anyway as an expression of love and devotion. (see Mark 14:1-11)

Or here is blind Bartimaeus shouting out to Jesus, “Son of David have mercy on me!”  And the crowd tells him to quiet.  But he just shouted all the more! (see Mark 10:46-52)  Then there is the widow who disregarded the whole law of tithing and put into the temple treasury everything she had!  2 small copper coins. (see Mark 12:41-44)

These are all pictures of people who are the exact opposite of having a form of godliness but who deny its power. There’s no measuring their devotion.  There’s no weighing how much time they will give.  There is no calculating how much love they will give to God.  There is no sense of drudgery or dullness.  It’s a simple loving abandonment to God and it’s so refreshing and thrilling.  It is what God wants from us.

So while there is a part of me that says I don’t want to be intimate with God, there is another part of me that thrills at reading of these people and I say this is what I want!    

And you may say, “Tom, you have an overactive conscience.”   But I say I know I can play this Christian thing better than most because I’ve learned it from the time I was born.

Maybe for you it is different.  Maybe you don’t feel the same way.  Good.  Praise God.  I’m not saying you should feel like I do – but if you do feel that you have the form of godliness but deny God’s power to love you, change you, work through you – you may be asking what are we to do?

The answer is given in Malachi 3:6 – “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you O children of Jacob have not perished.”

That’s a word of grace.  The Israelites had discovered from the time of Moses the truth about God. We read in Exodus 34:6, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.”

He has not changed.  That is His attitude toward the Israelites and  His attitude toward you and me.  “For, I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished.” Then verse 7 – “Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them.”

And here is what we are to do – “Return to me and I will return to you.”

Do you see?  Don’t return to doing the rituals for rituals’ sake.  Return to God.  People say if we only prayed more the church would be better.  If we only had more Scriptural teaching the church would be better.  If we only had this or that. That may be true, or that may not be true.  It’s not about more prayer or education or teaching – we could have the whole church turn out for a prayer meeting, and still be a long way from God.  Intimacy with God is all about your heart and my heart falling deeply in love with God and having a passion for God and God alone.  Having a thirst for God that we will not allow to be quenched with anything else but an intimate encounter with God. 

Return to God.  Place God at the centre.  Don’t let anything take His place in your life.

“We may say our prayers, read our Bibles attend worship, serve others and cling to the old rugged cross but still only have a form of godliness.  If these things become a substitute for God himself.  It is not the cross, but the Christ of the cross who saves us.  It is not our prayers that are powerful, but the God to whom we pray who hears us.  It is not our service but he power in which we do it that brings its fruit.  It is not our church attendance but the centrality of Christ that breathes reality and vitality into your life.”¹ 

Do you see why intimacy with God is vital to us? It save us from having a from of godliness while denying its power.  It saves us from play-acting.  It saves us from playing the Christian game. It saves us from hypocrisy.  It saves the church from slander, its pastors from dishonesty, and saves our witness from being a sham.

We have to ask, “What am I relying on as a source of my spiritual well-being that is less than God Himself?”  Is it an experience of God?  Then we need to let it go.  Is it attending worship?  Then we need to let it go.  Certain feelings?  Let them go.  Or hours of prayer?  Then let them go.  All these are good things but they are not the substance of the spiritual life.  When we think they are we have this from of godliness. 

So God says, “Return to me and I will return to you.”

You’ll hear Rena often say, “God is a gentleman and He will not force himself on you.” That’s true.  God puts the onus on us.  Return to Him and He will return to you.

A.W. Tozer in his classic book The Pursuit of God said that all great men and women of God had one thing in common.  Whey they heard the call of God to come to Him they did something about it.  They became determined to draw near to God.  They refused an intimacy with God that was mediocre, or normal or average.  They refused to see other people enjoy an intimate relationship with God while they stood on the outside.  They cried out to God.  They broke from the crowds that were content with mere religion and church.  They stopped blaming their circumstances, other people, the church, for their lack of intimacy with the living God.

When others were asleep they were awake –weeping before God.  Desperate for more of His presence.  They understood that the man or woman who would know God must spend time with Him.  They refused to give up until they had reached intimacy with God.

And they took Him at His word.  When He said, “Return to me and I will return to you,” they believed Him.

Do you know what Tozer discovered?  When these men and women desired God above all else, he discovered that God honoured them and blessed them.  You see, God is not looking for saints or holy people as the world describes them.  He is simply looking for men and women like you and me who love Him above all else, seek Him above all else, honour Him above all else and are not satisfied till they have that intimate relationship with God that Adam and Eve had with God as they walked with Him in the cool of the day in the garden.

Tozer called it the law of Reciprocal honour.  Return to God and He will return to you. 

May God save me; may God save you from having a form of godliness but denying its power – may we hunger and thirst for true intimacy with the living God. 

Copyright MBC and Tom Cullen - March 2007

ENDNOTES:

1. Charles Price, Alive in Christ, (Grand Rapids Michigan: Kregel Publishers, 1995), 103.

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