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.
An eye for an eye became turn the other cheek.
Love your neighbour and hate your enemies became, love your neighbour and your enemies!
Why this change because these things reflect the true nature of God.
And what do we see about the nature of God in these things? We get to see how God thinks; his attitudes and his love for us his creation.
2) In looking at how we treat one another when we hate we set ourselves up for judgement.
How can we follow a God who forgives and forgives enough to be killed in our place, to take on our sins, to be condemned on our behalf and not actually be willing to forgive others or ourselves? That in making a judgement on another “calling someone fool” we bring ourselves into judgement, the power of the spoken word, can give life or destroy.
How many potential great men have never become great because someone told them they were not capable and not to bother. God holds us all in great esteem, he values us all equally.
Lust is a sin in itself, why? Does God ask us to make a judgement call on someone because of their looks? God looks at the heart not the features!
Not to divorce, because what God starts in relationships he wants to continue, relationships are important to God. As we know from the history of God’s people covenant relationships are extremely important. As I said this is a complex subject in this day and age. I don’t want anyone here who is divorced though to feel judged. As a divorcee myself I know that the mercy of God triumphs over judgement.
God does not want us to swear oaths – simply be straight up, “Yes or No”, God is straight up he wants his people to be straight up.
An eye for an eye became turn the other cheek. Again, what is the example of Jesus; turn the other cheek?
Love your neighbour and hate your enemies became love your neighbour and your enemies! Give him your cloak when he asks for your shirt. This shows the nature of God, God who made the sun to shine on good and bad alike.
Our attitudes matter to God. As our attitudes reflect those of God, as we think like Jesus, things change!
In doing this we become witnesses and magnets drawing others to God!
As we change our attitudes to reflect the attitudes of Jesus, as we obey Jesus teaching we enter into the freedom that that brings. We develop, we become fulfilled!
3) This is what it means to be involved in the Kingdom of Heaven to be set free. I don’t know if you remember when Lieutenant Colonel Lyndon Buckingham spoke a few weeks ago? He discussed his journey between the Canadian – American border and that when he was asked his citizenship he said he was,”a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven” to which the boarder guard replied “me too!” Then let him through the boarder.
The truth is as we live in the will of God, as we follow the path that is a right relationship with God or another way of wording that is; “the path of righteousness” the depth of our understanding of God expands.
If not, if we break God’s commands we remain in a place where there is no spiritual growth.
If you feel spiritually stagnant, not growing, like a bud that never blossoms take a long hard look at how you treat the commands of God.
Do you lie, do you covert, steal; do you love God with all your heart, what about your mind and your soul?
God wants to have a relationship with us that brings us freedom. To have God the Holy Spirit come into our lives to be our helper, encourager, comforter and friend we have to put aside those things that stop this happening, the things we call sin.
We have two options living our lives in a way that is against the Law of God which we know brings death. It may not be instant death; it may not even be a slow death though often it is, it could become a life with so much promise that can end up as a smouldering pile of compost, brokenness and bitterness.
Or we can live seeking to fulfil the Law of God – this whole “living for God, serving all people” stuff. We can by living in the fulfilled law, following the teaching of Jesus live a fulfilled life!
If we look at the life of Jesus, we see that he came to fulfil the Law, we see that he got into a heap of earthly strife with those who had made rules and religion their thing because he knew that what God valued most was a right relationship with all people. We know that his Father God was “well pleased with him”. Matthew mentions this is his gospel. “While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5) Do we listen to him? My advice for what it is worth and that may not be much. Remember, I lost my marbles is, ‘listen to him!’
If we look at the lives of those we would call great saints of the church, why are they great? What was it that took ordinary ladies and blokes, and turned them into great saints?
4) They are great because they practised and taught the commands of God, nothing more nothing less. Because of their obedience they lived fulfilled lives!
Jesus tells us in the passage that even the teachers of the law and the Pharisees of his time did not reach this standard, he was at this stage having a dig at them because of their strict religion and rules, their practices which weighed people down and gave them no freedom.
But those who followed the commands of God realised that in doing so freedom was attained, this put them in a place were they could be in a great relationship with God. They allowed God to work out his plan in their lives they lived for him!
So how might this look.
Is there a thing, maybe a couple of things in your life, which you know block your way to a better relationship with God? Now I know from personal experience that these things are the sought of things that pop into my mind when someone asks a question like that, again. THE QUESTION WAS “Is there a thing maybe a couple of things in your life that you know block your way to a better relationship with God!”
Don’t you just hate it when someone asks a question like that? But is there
Time to get to the point. Jesus came to fulfil the law he came to take comic book lives and turn them into fully fledged motion picture epic’s, so we could live complete lives and lives with eternal futures. He came to take buds and make them bloom. For the motor heads out there he came to take 1 litre straight fours and turn them into 3.5 litre V Twelve’s.
All picture words that point to the fact that he came to fulfil the word of God so that your life, who ever you are can be all that it can be.
Here is a challenge, is today a time in your life when things are on a point of balance when things could tip one way or another maybe things could stay as they are or never be the same again.
