This morning, we’re finishing our message series entitled, “Toxic.”

By definition, if something is toxic, it is capable of causing serious debilitation or even death. In reality, we all possess toxic materials inside of our lives. We must appropriately deal with them before it’s too late and we find ourselves weak, ineffective, and dying.

So far, we learned about toxic thoughts, how they can seep in and set the course of our lives unknowingly. Not only did we learn how to recognize them, but also how to replace them as they arise. We learned about toxic influences and how we need our brothers and sisters in Christ to help us to recognize them and address them.

We learned last week about toxic relationships and how we need to be mindful and honest about the kind of company we are being. After all, “Bad company corrupts good character,” right?

Lastly, we’re learning about toxic religion.

When we learn about religion in the Bible, the Greek word used is the word thrēskeia. This word is all about external things such as traditions, ceremonies, rituals, and disciplines.

There is a unique distinction between Christianity and most any other form of religion out there. Religion is primarily about man sacrificing to either please a god or to achieve a higher power.

Christianity is quite the reverse and focuses more on relationship. Christianity is about the one, true, living God who sacrificed everything for man and simply invites us into a relationship with Him. He sacrificed everything and we are the beneficiaries of it.

Everything that we do externally is not done with the motive of getting into God’s good graces nor earning His salvation. Rather, external things are done out of a love and gratitude in response to what God has already done for us. External things are done out of a relationship of trust in His ways.

Toxic, Christian religion, however, says that you have to look and act a certain way to be found acceptable by God. By actions, it teaches that you have to clean up your life before approaching God, which is quite contradictory to the true gospel message. Many churches, unfortunately, exist for this sole purpose. They exist as a group of individuals hard-set on traditions and external facades forcing people to look and act as they do calling it discipleship.

Colossians 2:20-23

20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

We don’t want to make the appearance of disciples, we want to see people filled with the Holy Spirit and transformed from the inside out by the power of God. This is the true gospel. We come to Jesus just as we are and He does a transforming work within our lives, which in time, through process, becomes evidenced outwardly as well. We want to see people not just restrain themselves from indulging in the flesh. We want to see people whose hunger and thirst for those things having been replaced for more of God’s Presence!

Relationship is about a living God accepting us as we are and doing an internal transformation from the inside out. Relationship allows us to be unique and distinct from others, which is what true and authentic discipleship is all about. It is about us becoming the unique person that God intended us to be. Relationship is all about who we are within and not about mere outward appearances. God even had to remind the great prophet, Samuel, of this fact when looking to select the second King of Israel:

1 Samuel 16:7

the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance o