Tip The Pivot, Never Be The Same Again! Series

This series of three sermons is called ‘The disappearing Earth and Two Camels, three challenges of Jesus’ for reasons that will I hope become obvious as I preach through the series.

I can remember things in my life that struck me as if something had changed and would never be the same again. Things that may strike some as a little strange, moments when everything just sort of toppled on a point of balance and fell into a new place. Things would never be the same again.

Like the day Ceri Evans beat me at marbles on the front lawn at home. We were about ten at the time, he wanted to give up and I was on a winning streak. He had this one marble that I wanted, so I pushed him to play on. The result was that he cleaned me out of all my marbles, I don’t know if that was the start of his determination to succeed, but succeed he did, he went on to become an All White, Rhodes Scholar and Doctor of Medicine and quite a number of other very impressive things. I’m just pleased that by losing my marbles, I could play my part in his great accomplishments. That may answer a question for some of you. Yes, I really have lost my marbles.

Another was the day that I started working full time, Lorry Crabb the Chief Electrical Inspector for the Nelson City was showing me around. Here I was fresh out of school and calling everyone Mister, Lorry looked at me and said “Andrew, Mister Crabb is my Father and He’s dead, the names Lorry”. This was my welcome to the adult world of first names. This might seem a little strange to some of the teenagers in this day and age.

The day I crashed my Dad’s car will go down as another day that brought about change not just to the shape of the car but to my understanding of responsibility on the road.

I’m sure that we can all recount events that have been monumental in our lives. We think things will be the same but they never are, Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount was addressing this huge crowd. Part of the reason he was addressing them was to let them know his purpose, the reason he was doing the things he was doing.

This day was like no other, the whole of history was balanced on a pivot point and about to change forever, the words he spoke were to have such an impact on those who were listening to them, that they would send shock waves through those people and down through history for tens of hundreds of years. These words will rattle the foundations of thinking until heaven and earth disappear.

Let’s have a look at a Challenge that came out of what he was saying.

Matthew 5:17-20

“Do not think” is an interesting place to start a sentence, you may have heard it at times, “do not think you are going to change channels” or “do not think you are going anywhere dressed like that”

Jesus says it, “Do not think I have come to do away with the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.”

If we look at the context of the situation, here is Jesus teaching and about to teach some new stuff but he wanted to make it quite clear he was not doing away with what had gone before. He was going to make it real, he was going to bring it from a place where it was seen, too a place where it was lived. To take it from its bud too its blooming flower. From its comic book understanding too it’s fully fledged motion picture epic in 3D.

1) So he had not come to abolish the Law but to fulfil it. He even pointed out that until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter of the law will disappear. If you’re interested the smallest letter was thing called a ‘Yod’ which was something about the size of an apostrophe. Not even a Yod could be done away with.

The thing is this law dealt with outward actions, do not do this do not do that.

This pivot point that Jesus placed the law on was one where it became more about attitudes than actions.

Do not murder became – anyone who is angry with their brother will be subject to judgement, if you call your brother a fool you will be in danger of the fires of hell.

Do not commit adultery became – if you look at a woman with lust in your mind you’ve already committed adultery.

Divorce became don’t divorce.

Swearing Oaths became not swearing oaths.