Inbred in the deepest part of our souls is a notion that was born in the Garden of Eden that defines love for us. Love is whatever satisfies our needs. When Eve took a look at the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, she saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate… (Gen 3:6)
To Eve, the tree had everything to supply her needs—physical (food), emotional (delight), and spiritual (wisdom). That self-focus, first introduced to Eve by the Serpent, has carried through to us, and it is a lie. The lie is that we are self sufficient; that given enough time, motivation, and resources, we can get what we need to have life. To do that we only had to disobey God—go against His nature in favor of our own. We think that self interest is okay as long as we don’t visibly hurt someone else. That too is a lie. Jesus reveals that real right character comes not from what we do but from who are inside.
Our needs are real—but how we satisfy them determines who we are—and when we unhook the satisfying of our desires from our relationship with God we are not like Him anymore. Since that fall we haven’t even had a choice. We are pre-programmed with a default setting for self sufficiency instead of God sufficiency. You can look great on the outside, but be dead on the inside—besides, thinking we can have life on our own isn’t really satisfying for the long term.
The Apostle John put it this way:
1 John 2:16-17 For all that is in the world— the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
At the end of our passage today Jesus says “you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Our problem is the programming which tells us to always do those things that are in our self interest, even if it is counter to what God is like. And to further complicate things, we are deluded into thinking this is the right course of action.
Jesus came to tell us and demonstrate for us how far away from being “perfect” we really are, and then die to make a way for His perfection to become ours. So deciding that we are going to follow Jesus’ moral code in the Sermon on the Mount simply won’t work. Even if we want to do good, we can’t sustain it for a long period of time before self interest takes over again. And because the brain is a wonderful self-justifying organ, we believe deep down that we are good people.
To get us to the point where we say “Okay, I will give up my self interest and entrust my life and my destiny to Jesus” we must know how far away from real character we are. We love ourselves, but do not understand what real love is, and that’s the subject of the balance of Chapter 5.
Jesus is really talking about relationships—making them, keeping them, and fixing them when they break. He’s answering what is probably on the minds of his audience—“how can I possibly be more righteous than the law abiding Pharisees?”
21 – 26 (Exodus 20:13)
To earn God’s favor, or just feel good about ourselves we do things or avoid doing something. We come to church (like bringing a sacrifice) and it makes us feel better. Or we stop before actually hurting someone (like saying “I’ve never killed anyone”) and that makes us feel like we have been good or pleased God.
But Jesus is saying here that the Law goes well beyond lip service or outward appearance, but goes to the attitude and thought life of the person.
Mark 7:18-23 Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?" ( Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."
The character of God has to come from within us. And “God is love” (1 John 4:16).
Being angry with someone without a righteous reason is the same thing as killing them with your mind. How many times on the freeway have you wished that the person who just cut you off would get in a wreck?
Jesus’ point is that we are liable for what we think as well as what we say and do. And notice how the importance Jesus puts on relationships. Before we come to church to bless God, if there is a broken relationship that we can fix, we should tend to that before we rejoice in our relationship with the Father.
Then there are those things in our lives where it might not be a broken relationship but a broken promise or business deal. Jesus is saying that even for those that are “adversaries” with us, we should seek to settle our differences before they grow. This is within God’s character. We were enemies of God, but God demonstrated his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
27 – 30 (Exodus 20:14)
Intimacy is another great human need. God satisfies that need with an intimate relationship that He offers through Jesus, and He prescribes the ways intimacy needs are met in the confines of monogamous marriage (as a picture of his fidelity to us as the bride of Christ).
We want to know our limits so we can go right up to them and still be okay. If God says not to have sex outside of marriage then as long as we don’t do that then everything is fine. But Jesus goes way beyond the actions again to what’s going on in our minds. The mind, body, and spirit are interconnected in ways we cannot fathom. Jesus reveals that what goes on in the mind is just as much defiling as what goes on with the body. In fact, your body will only do what your mind has first contemplated.
There’s this interesting couple of lines here about cutting off your hand or gouging out your eye. This is figurative, of course. Cutting off one hand only allows the other to sin. Jesus is saying “if it were possible to get into heaven this way, it would be worth it.”
The strong language suggests how strongly Jesus desires us to avoid situations and scenarios that promote lust. “Flee youthful lists” Paul told Timothy (2 Timothy 2:22). And it’s not just sexual lust either—we can lust after power or intellect or beauty or possessions. Lust is wanting something so bad you’ll walk over God’s character to get it!
Sinful action is more destructive than sinful desire, but sinful desire is just as destructive to a person’s right character as sinful action. By the way, you might be glad that others can’t read your mind, but God can!
31 – 32 (Deut 24:1-4)
Divorce was a hot topic among the Jews, and is today in Christian circles. In the Law, Moses said a man could divorce his wife if she did something “indecent.” Some in Jesus’ day concluded that “indecent” was practically anything—and so divorce was common.
Jesus isn’t really giving a primer on divorce—that would be just more laws to follow, more rules to obey. What He is saying is that marriage is a picture of our relationship with God. It should be treated with respect and not dissolved except if one of the parties has already dissolved it through unfaithfulness. I would suggest to you that what matters is the heart. If the person who has been unfaithful is repentant and wants to make things right with God and their spouse, then working it out to save the marriage is the higher course.
God is into saving relationships. But to woodenly interpret this to say there should never be divorce under any circumstance goes against another important characteristic of God—that of protecting the innocent who are being victimized by another. There are indeed some sins that are more important than others. If a man is abusing his wife then he has committed a far worse sin than if she divorces him.
This might not be a popular opinion but I think we need to focus on the principal of what Jesus is saying: marriage for life except for unfaithfulness (which can be more than just adultery, but also abuse).
Also recognize that God knows we are frail and will fail. Even in our weaknesses is abundant in mercy and restoration.
33 – 37 (Exodus 20:7, Lev 19:12)
When Jesus says “you have heard that it was said” it’s like saying “this is the tradition” or “this is humanity’s default setting.”
The religious leaders had created a complicated system for determining just when they had to keep a promise—just how binding it was. For us, when something becomes too hard, inconvenient, or we just forget to do something, we make excuses. Jesus is basically saying “a promise is a promise.” If you say you are going to do something, then do it! And don’t say ‘yes’ when you really never plan on carrying through.” And that goes for saying “no” as well. We need to learn to be more honest, in love, and when we know we can’t do something, just say so. We make oaths when lying is a possibility—and we know who the father of lies is!
38 – 42 (Ex 21:23-25, Deut 19:21)
The law was given to limit vendettas and bring about proportional justice. When someone hurts us we naturally want to fight back with overwhelming force to crush them! But Jesus lets us know the character of God is not that way. Not only are we not to “get back” at people physically, the word “resist” in verse 39 means “to take legal action against.” There are many ways we as humans have to even out a score—maybe it’s telling someone’s embarrassing secret, or setting them up for failure.
This is part of the self preservation – self interest model of human default behavior. Especially when it comes to people who are “evil” or we just don’t like. The point here is that we should hold lightly to our own “personal rights” if it means someone will be more likely to be drawn to Jesus. Paul was a great example of this (Acts 16:37). In 1 Corinthians 8:13 he said he would lay down his own personal rights as a believer if it caused another to stumble.
So we should hold our rights loosely, as well as our possessions. In verse 41 we see the Roman army’s “right” to force an ordinary citizen to carry loads for one thousand paces. The heart of a servant is again in view here. If by going beyond what is required we can show God’s love and mercy, wouldn’t that be worth it, even if we don’t “have” to? Finally, we should put the needs of others ahead of our own needs. It doesn’t mean we blindly give everything away (Phil 2:3)
43 – 48 (Lev 19:18)
The Pharisees interpreted Lev 19:18 to mean you should only love those who love in return. That again is the default human position. Loving those that hate you takes Spirit power—its’ not something we can do on our own, but it is what God does, he loved you, didn’t He?
Jesus sums it all up with a very simple instruction: be perfect. By this time we should all be so under the pile that even the thought of being “okay” would seem impossible. The word actually means “mature.” The Law is not the standard of perfection, God is. As we trust and rely on His life, He matures us into people that actually do these things!
Conclusions
This is all about relationships—making strong ones that can stand difficult times, remaining faithful in those relationships and then repairing them when trouble comes. Broken relationships and promises cultivate death in us. So:
Be A Relationship Maker – even of those you don’t like or don’t like you
Be A Relationship Keeper – be honest, faithful, and committed
Be A Relationship Fixer – when something goes wrong, if you can fix it, do!
God is relational. The Trinity is relational. And relationships are important to God.
I think Jesus’ ultimate point here is that we as humans had a relationship with God. We were unfaithful, we were hateful, we abandoned him, we didn’t keep out promises, and we deserve God’s retaliation. But praise be to God, He is a relationship maker, keeper and fixer. Where we failed He came through, and created a way not only for the relationship to be repaired but to repair us to become like Him. Isn’t that wonderful!
Without Jesus we are incomplete and immature—we are not “perfect.” But with His Holy Spirit living inside of us, and our relationship with God repaired, we can finally get involved, not in self interest only, but in being transformed into His character (matured) and then becoming an active part in His plan to share the love of God through Jesus Christ with as many as we can.
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