Ever wonder what it would be like to be a monk?  Don’t you think it would be boring, year after year?  Cloistered away in some darkened place, chants, prayers at all hours of the day and night.  Periods of enforced silence.  What’s the food like?  Do they ever get to watch the Dallas Cowboys? 

One of the great lies Satan has perpetrated, especially to young people, is that the Christian life is b-o-r-i-n-g.  Unfortunately Christian schools and churches cooperate with such an attitude in promoting a "we’ll-keep –the- rules- coming- and –you keep –the- rules- that- are -coming -attitude."  Boys and girls sit on different sides of the library and the lunch room.  Don’t, sit together, don’t eat together, and if you hold hands, that’s close to the unpardonable sin.  Don’t, don’t, don’t.  So that the Christian life becomes a series of don’ts that never end.  Then, when they get old enough, they throw it all over and we think they’re rebelling against Christianity, but what they’re fed up with is Phariseeism, masquerading as Christianity.

What it would’ve been like to be a Pharisee?  Matt. 23:4 gives us a clue: "They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them."  They burdened people with rules they wanted to make sure every one else kept, but they were the leaders; they didn’t have to keep them.  They strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel.  They picked people apart and thought they were the better for it.  They had an "I’m better than you are attitude."   In their self-righteousness, they thanked God that they weren’t like the hoi polloi. 

A fellow I know has reviewed a book he doesn’t like.  I know both the author and the reviewer.  The reviewer, who doesn’t like the author or the author’s position, resorts to extreme pettiness in his review.  Get this: he criticizes the author for the way he abbreviates the states in the bibliography and the footnotes.  Good grief!  And guess what—the reviewer is a Christian!  When I read that part of his review, I thought, this sounds like a junior high girl. 

Then the reviewer catches every single typographical error he can, and most all books have typos in them.  Anyone who reads the review would think, "Hey, this is getting personal."  It makes the reviewer look petty.  That’s an example of what the Pharisees were like—they majored on the minors and picked people to death. 

They got so negative that they were incensed that a blind man got his sight back through one of Jesus’ miracles and the reason they were angry was that He didn’t do it "right; He did it on a Saturday.  But, what if He had done the miracle on a Wednesday?  Would they have received Him as the Messiah and bowed before Him?  Of course not.  Instead of being in awe and ecstatic that a blind man could now see, they hated Jesus so much, their hatred made them irrational.  For a reviewer to pick apart a book because of the author’s use of state abbreviations is irrational.  Who cares?  Who cares about the Pharisees and their gnats?

Would it be too much to say that the Pharisees were only happy once in Jesus’ earthly ministry and that was only for three days and three nights?

My point is that to be around the Pharisees must have been, at best, boring after a while.  Rules, minutiae, all their constant critical analysis would get old, wouldn’t it?  To live with them would have been Yawn City .  Like monks. 

But let’s look at the Christian life through the lens of evangelism.  Evangelism, grace-oriented evangelism is exciting!  If you want to add some excitement to your life, start telling people about Jesus!  You won’t lack for excitement.  And you won’t lack for joy either. 

Whereas, the Jews under the Pharisees were miserable, the disciples following Jesus were excited and full of joy.  In Jn. 4:36, we read: "Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together."  And in Acts 15:3: "The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria , they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the brothers very glad."  To hear the news of someone’s salvation makes other believers glad.  In I Thess. 2:20: "Indeed, you are our glory and joy." 

Grace evangelism (is there any other legitimate kind?) brings joy when a person believes in Jesus. 

But let’s look at the subject from another point of view, the point of view of a works oriented person, one who holds to Lordship salvation.  You go to him and you’re so happy that someone you know has come to believe in Jesus, and you tell him about the person’s coming to faith.  From his point of view, he can’t get excited, or maybe just very little, if at all.  Why?

From his point of view, you’ve jumped the gun.  From the way he looks at things, he can’t be sure.  I ran across a statement someone made who holds to the "you can’t be sure" viewpoint.  He said about being saved, "You either jump full in, or you don’t jump at all." 

So, now we’ve got a problem if we believe that idea.  First of all, what does it mean to "jump full in?"  What’s "full in," as opposed to "part way in?"  Three-fourths in?  Half in?  You see, from the Lordship salvation point of view, you tell him that "John was saved last night!" he can’t get very excited about it because, he doesn’t know if John "jumped full in" or not.  "Only time will tell," he thinks to himself. 

He can be coming at it from one of two different angles—he has to wonder, "What if he didn’t really dedicate himself to the Lord?  What if he didn’t really believe?  What if he’s like the ground in Matthew 13 (from his viewpoint, only one of the four soils is saved, whereas from the grace viewpoint, three soils are saved because the three "believed.")  Once we read in Scripture that X or Y "believed," then they’re saved, as John 1:12 says.  If he isn’t, then words don’t mean anything.

From his viewpoint, what if two years from now, John up and runs off with another woman and leaves his wife and kids?  Well, if he does, then, from his viewpoint, you got all excited for nothing because that shows that John wasn’t really, saved; John didn’t jump in all the way.  If he had, he wouldn’t have done that.  [But what about Solomon who ran off with 700 other women and never came back?] 

Or what if two years from now, he’s quit church and he’s lounging around the house on Sunday morning, reading the paper and watching the clock until the Dallas Cowboys come on.  Then he’d have to say, "He never really believed in the first place."  From his viewpoint, he never really had it or he lost it or can lose it.  No wonder he can’t get excited.

The works-oriented person sucks the joy out of the Christian life.  If you want to punish yourself, read the introspective writings of the Puritans as they constantly examine themselves and others to see if they and others "have jumped in all the way or not."  It’s depressing.  

But, for the grace-oriented believer, we can get excited.  We can "rejoice because their names are written in the Book of Life."  Where would the monk find joy?  From Martin Luther’s experience, his life in the monastery was one miserable experience after another.  He would occasionally beat himself with a whip, starve himself, or climb up stairs on his knees (that would hurt) saying the Lord’s Prayer on every step.  He got so into it that he collapsed and his fellow monks thought he was going to die. 

Although the works oriented person doesn’t usually go to that extreme, what he does is carry that viewpoint around with him, outside of a monastery, making himself miserable in the process.  He would never think of entering into a monastery, but in a way, he does.

But the grace-oriented believer’s life is one of exhilaration, because he knows once a person believes in Jesus, His name is forever in the Book of Life.