Righteous But Not Too Much?

We must seek the character of Jesus and not His position. That was my main point yesterday as I tried to explain the difficult dance of how we correct the self-righteous, as Jesus did, and not become self-righteous ourselves. As sinners, who can't possibly know the hearts of other struggling sinners, how do we warn and correct without becoming the very Pharisees we're attempting to help. It's all about His spirit not His power. It's too easy to become self-righteous about not being self-righteous and risk the righteousness that God gives us because of His love - not our rightness. Did you follow that? Anything and everything we do can become an act of self-righteousness if we use it to compare ourselves to others, judge others, improve our image to others, or earn our salvation.
Time and space won't allow it here, but after a brief discussion with a friend of a friend about a friend (confused yet?), there may not be a better example of self-righteousness than how many today teach, preach, and practice their legalistic conclusions regarding marriage and divorce. Another case of an eldership dropping an edict on another desparate and hurting Christian, in an abusive, drug controlling, covenant mocking relationship, that since there was no known sex-out-of-marriage-adultery they must stay together or be single the rest of their life - "or the church will discipline" them guidance. There are a hundred points I'd love to list right here, about seeing laws and missing the Spirit. There is an ideal that God wants - one man for one woman for life and He hates divorce - always. There is an ideal that God wants - humble servants who love Him totally - He hates the proud - always. He hates to see covenants broken - period - always. But He's always the Father looking for the Prodigal to return and to give forgiveness. Laying aside those arguments and the sick Pharisees discussions about semantics, how can shepherds who have done nothing to guide, help, heal, pray with, and do everything possible to secure and protect a marriage, suddenly sit in judgment and pronounce sentence on God's children. "It's scripture!" someone screams. Well the Pharisees were corrected by Jesus for using scripture to "find life" without a real relationship with God. It's a crock of legalism. Couples or leaders who haven't sought God's guidance have no business seeking His justification for their position.
If you want to do something interesting, just make a list of all the Bible characters, men and woman of faith, who because of their marital situation or history wouldn't be allowed to set foot in some of our churches today. And don't hand me that "It's Old Testament" excuse. Jesus was still in the Old Testament when He spoke in Matthew 5 and 19 - and all He was saying was "Let's go back to what God intended in the beginning." He was pointing back to Genesis not the future. And who gave Moses the right to amend it?
One last thought. We can't be like Jesus when He cleansed the Temple, or spoke to the hearts of His apostles, because we can't see hearts. I can't help but feel like that's a good reason to not sit in judgment on broken marriages. We can't know what two people really think and feel in their hearts. We never know the whole story. God does. He's in the judging business. We're in the help and prevention business - the love and forgiveness business - well, because He's all about that too.