Are We Following God or 
Just Following Religion?

This week, we talked about Jesus and the Pharisees and asked, "Are we following God or just following Religion?"

Using scenes from the series, "The Chosen", we looked at some of Jesus’ strongest confrontations, not with obvious sinners, but with the religious leaders of His day. Our lesson challenged students to think about an important question: Are we truly following Jesus, or are we simply following religious rules and traditions?

We began with the “Too Many Rules Game.” Students were asked to listen to a short message while simultaneously following a growing list of rules like clapping when they heard certain words, raising their hands for others, changing seats, standing before answering, and more.

The point quickly became very clear that when students concentrated on following all the rules, it became very difficult to concentrate on the actual message.

That illustrated one of the major problems Jesus confronted with the Pharisees. Following rules, especially when presented as commands from God, can become such a focus that we lose sight of what God is actually trying to teach us.

We then looked at who the Pharisees were. The Pharisees were a Jewish religious group during the time of Jesus. Although we often think of them negatively, they had some admirable qualities. They took Scripture seriously, believed in the resurrection, memorized large portions of Scripture, and genuinely wanted Israel to obey God.

The problem was not their desire to obey God.

Over time, the religious leaders added many traditions and detailed rules intended to help people obey God's Law. Instead of helping people draw closer to God, however, these traditions became burdens that actually made following God more difficult.

Jesus addressed this directly in Mark 7:8, telling the religious leaders that they had let go of God's commands while holding onto human traditions.

We emphasized an important distinction: God's commands and human religious traditions are not necessarily the same thing.

We then looked at several problems Jesus identified in the short video from "The Chosen":

• They cared more about outward appearances than what was happening in their hearts. Jesus compared them to “whitewashed tombs” in Matthew 23:27–28—looking righteous outwardly while something very different was happening inside.
• They wanted recognition from other people. Matthew 23:5 describes people doing religious deeds in order to be noticed.
• They made following God unnecessarily burdensome. Matthew 23:4 describes religious leaders' rules placing heavy burdens on others rather than helping them.

We then said, well those are the problems that Jesus had with the Pharisees but what does that have to do with us today?

Jesus' warnings weren't only for the Pharisees. They should cause Christians today to examine ourselves as well. Could Christians Make the Same Mistakes Today?

Yes, absolutely.

We discussed how churches and even individual Christians can unintentionally repeat some of the same mistakes as the Pharisees: allowing traditions to become more important than Scripture, concentrating on looking Christian rather than becoming Christlike, becoming overly concerned with following rules, judging other people's sins while ignoring our own, or becoming more attached to church culture than to Jesus Himself.

We even listed some of the "rules" that some Churches and even some Christians today allow to become more important than actually following Jesus and having a relationship with God.

This doesn't mean that rules, standards, traditions, or obedience are automatically bad. There is an important distinction that the problem comes when human rules and traditions are treated as though God Himself commanded them and they then become obstacles to actually knowing and following Him.

Jesus' message brought the focus back to what matters most. In Matthew 22:37–40, Jesus summarized God's Law around two great commands: love God and love people.

In John 13:35, Jesus taught that His disciples would be recognized by their love. And in Matthew 23:23, Jesus criticized religious leaders for neglecting the more important matters of God's Law, including justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

The Pharisees could know Scripture, pray, fast, worship, and carefully practice their religion and still miss the heart of what God wanted. We can still do the same thing today.

We said that being a Christian is about much more than just looking like a Christian. Our goal should be to become more like Jesus.

That means loving God with our whole heart, sincerely loving other people, putting God's Word above human traditions, and allowing God to transform who we are from the inside out.

The question we want to ask ourselves is simple.

Am I following Jesus or am I just following religion?