THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT (part seven)
Matt. 5:19-20
Last week we looked at what Jesus meant when he said he did not come to abolish the law but fulfill it. He taught things that the people hadn't heard before. It would be easy to think he was introducing a brand new teaching that was separate from the scriptures but that wasn't the case. He came to uphold and promote them. He came to clarify and explain them since they had been misrepresented by the religious leaders.
They had made accusations against Jesus that he was trying to go against the law so Jesus needed to counter what was being said about him. He wanted people to believe him. That wouldn't be easy since the religious leaders were looked at as God's representatives and since the commoners didn't have access to the scriptures, they took everything the religious leaders taught as truth. But some would be convinced that what Jesus said and did was not against God or his laws.
Jesus went on to say that the law would remain until everything was accomplished. Jesus accomplished the requirements of the law regarding the sacrifices for sin as well as accomplishing the fulfillment of the prophecies concerning the Messiah. However, the moral law remains as a standard for all people. The command for us to love God and our neighbor will never be fulfilled until the end of time.
Plus, the law remains for those who reject Christ as they will be judged by it and found guilty of breaking it since no one is able to keep it. The law shows us what God's requirements are but it cannot give us the power to keep them. Therefore we needed a savior. Jesus lived his life in obedience to the law and was therefore an acceptable sacrifice for us.
When we are baptized into Christ we are no longer held under the curse of the law. Jesus did for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. "The law is the light that reveals how dirty the room is and Jesus is the broom that sweeps it clean." Today, we'll look at vs. 19-20 that talk about obedience and righteousness.
1) Obeying the law (19).
Matthew 5:19, "Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
Jesus is communicating that following all of God's commands are important. In Matthew 28 Jesus told his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything I commanded you. Everything Jesus commanded is important just like everything God commanded is important.
This helps to support Jesus' claim in vs. 17 that he didn't come to do away with any of it, but to fulfill all of it. Jesus kept the fullness of the law as God had given it; not as the scribes and Pharisees had warped it, added to it and neglected the weightier matters of it.
Matt. 23:23, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former."
"More important". Jesus makes it clear that some commands are more important than others. However, none are to be neglected. We can have a similar problem today. We might consider some commands to be important while others are trivial. Do not steal, do not murder, do not commit adultery-big deal. Swearing, lying, coveting-not as serious. Remembering the Sabbath-not a big deal.
We can have the tendency to be obedient to the easier commands but minimize the importance of the harder ones to follow. And we like to pick and choose, focusing on the teachings that matter most to us and disregarding the ones we'd rather not deal with. I don't recall the bible giving us that leeway. Although the law describes varying consequences depending on the offense, that doesn't mean they're not all important.
But Paul said we're not under law, but under grace. So why do we have to obey the law? Paul did say that in Romans 6:14 but then he follows that up with vs. 15, "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!"
Being under grace means we will not be judged as a lawbreaker but will receive mercy and grace because of Christ's sacrifice. But that doesn't give us a license to sin; we don't have the freedom to break God's commands without consequence. We may not be obligated to follow certain aspects of the law, but we are still obligated to follow the moral law.
The command to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind is not removed. Just because Jesus fulfilled the law that doesn't mean loving my neighbor as myself no longer applies. Do not steal, do not murder, honor your parents-these haven't been voided.
Paul talked about how we are not under the letter of the law but the Spirit of the law. God's laws had literal implications and spiritual implications. For example, the command of physical circumcision was a symbol of what was coming-the need for spiritual circumcision.
Romans 2:28-29, "A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God."
As natural circumcision removes flesh from the body, spiritual circumcision removes the fleshly nature from the spirit. The spiritual component is necessary for all instead of physical circumcision which would only apply to males.
Another example of the spirit of the command is seen in Lev. 19:27, "Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard." This was so the Jews would stand out and be recognized as God's people. What is the spirit of that law for us? That we would do things that cause us to stand out and be recognized as followers of Jesus.
The laws have spiritual significance for us today-if we want to take the time to look. Another command with literal and spiritual implications is honoring the Sabbath. The Pharisees went way overboard regarding the Sabbath. I believe there's actually a law in Israel that states you can't pick your nose on the Sabbath.
Matthew 12:1-12, "At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”
He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests.
Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
It is always lawful to do what is good and holy; even on the Sabbath. God wanted the Sabbath to be a blessing to his people but by the time the Pharisees came along it had become a burden. God wanted his people to rest. He wanted them to also take time out to worship him.
We need to think about what happens when we don't do that. Left to our own devices, some of us would work seven days a week with very little rest. I know someone who is like this. He works four jobs and barely has time to eat and sleep. No days off-and he is a professing Christian who says he loves the Lord. I'm not saying he's not a Christian, but he would know the command.
So, this goes on with the command to honor the Sabbath. Imagine how it would be if God didn't have that command? You'd have even more people working themselves ragged and not giving any time to God. If this was our pattern of living we'd be working ourselves into an early grave and working ourselves out of the kingdom of heaven.
The spirit of the Sabbath is trusting God and putting him first. Will we trust God to provide when we take that time off? Will we put him first by going to church instead of going to work? Honoring the Sabbath is beneficial to us-body, mind and soul.
2) True righteousness (20).
Matt. 5:20, "For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."
What righteousness did the Pharisees have? Theirs was a self-righteousness. Remember the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18? Which one went home justified? Not the one who boasted about keeping the law but the one who recognized his need for God's mercy. The reason our righteousness needs to surpass the Pharisees' is because their righteousness is superficial; external. It is not a righteousness of faith; from the heart (circumcision of the heart).
Romans 2:12-15, "All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)"
The Jews had the law written on the scrolls but that didn't mean it was written on their hearts. They knew it but that didn't mean they practiced it. The gentiles were doing the things required by the law even though they didn't have the law. How?
God gives us a conscience. He gives us an inherent sense of right and wrong. I'm sure you did the right thing every now and then before you became a Christian, right? There are people out there doing good things but that doesn't make them good people. Jesus clarified that in Luke 18 when he said that no one was good except God. Jesus was good because he was God in the flesh. But everyone else is a sinner, and therefore not good, unless Jesus sets you free.
Unless I trust in Christ fulfilling the requirements of the law for me then I will not enter the kingdom of God because I cannot ever hope to meet God's requirements on my own. When we follow Christ, we in essence, follow the law-because Jesus lived by the law. Thankfully, because of mercy and grace, we don't have to follow him perfectly in order to be accepted.
The bottom line is, we are all under the law; we are all subject to fulfill God's requirements. If we disobey, even just once, we are lawbreakers and therefore are doomed. Jesus' sacrifice doesn't change the rules; the law remains. The law shows us right and wrong but it doesn't give us the power to uphold it. It is impossible to keep it perfectly.
Jesus came to fulfill the law and show us how to live in obedience to God's moral law. And since we can't live out the commands of Christ perfectly, we trust in what he did to fulfill our requirements.
Therefore, those who don't come to Christ will be judged and found guilty of sinning against God's holy commands. But for those who have walked by faith in Christ, his perfection will be graciously imposed upon us and we will be exonerated. Our righteousness is not based in observing the law but in accepting Christ-who fulfilled the law and set us free from the penalty for breaking it. Now we obey the law of Christ.
We can try to live with a Pharisaical attitude that says we're good enough without Christ. We can depend on the delusion that we've done enough to be declared righteous in God's sight. We can think our religious duties or good deeds will pay for our ticket to heaven but that won't cut it. If our righteousness is based in anything other than faith in what Jesus did for us then we're fooling ourselves.
The law of God condemns us-whether it's the Law of Moses for the Jew or the Law of conscience; the inherent sense of right and wrong God has placed in us. Rom. 1:20 says that mankind is without excuse. God enables everyone to be conscious of him. He gives everyone the opportunity to believe in him or deny him. He gives us the evidence in creation itself as a testimony to who he is.
Judgment is inevitable-but God gives us an out through Jesus. You can either stand alone on judgment day and be found guilty or you can have Jesus there with you and be declared innocent. Jesus is the only option for life.
