Sermon Reources available here...

                      

Sermon Reources available here...

                      

Quest for Faith: Living Above the Law

We have been working our way through the first recorded sermon that Christ preached after beginning his ministry on this earth. Here is what we have learned so far:

God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him,[a]
        for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
God blesses those who mourn,
        for they will be comforted.
God blesses those who are humble,
        for they will inherit the whole earth.
God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice,[b]
        for they will be satisfied.
God blesses those who are merciful,
        for they will be shown mercy.
God blesses those whose hearts are pure,
        for they will see God.
God blesses those who work for peace,
        for they will be called the children of God.
God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right,
        for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you[c] and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers.

“You are the salt of the earth.

“You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden."

The teaching of the Beatitudes has to do with inner character or righteousness. Jesus follows this with two metaphors – salt and light. He is impressing on his hearers that this inner righteousness will have a tangible effect on humanity. In verses 17-20, He gives a summary of the radical righteousness of the kingdom. He also is introducing six great examples of how this righteousness is in continuity with the Old Testament law.

It is sort of a bridge from the teaching on inner character and righteousness to the call to a radical righteousness that is lived out with total devotion to God and His word.

“Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose. 18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God’s law will disappear until its purpose is achieved. 19 So if you ignore the least commandment and teach others to do the same, you will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But anyone who obeys God’s laws and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.

“But I warn you—unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven! Matthew 5:17-20

One of the question that we must answer today is what does the law have to do with us? We must try to understand this so that we might understand where we stand in relationship to the law as defined in the Old Testament and the law defined by Christ in the New Testament. Laws matter. They always have and they always will. You pay attention to them everyday although there are people who don’t and they usually wind up in jail or paying some kind of penalty.

God has always made the rules. From the beginning of creation, He made rules that when followed keep us in line with the way we were intended to live. Keeping these laws becomes beneficial to us.

The world into which Jesus was speaking was one of laws on top of laws. Most of them were man-made but had been tied into spiritual or religious consequences if broken. Those listening to the Sermon on the Mount were schooled in Jewish rules that had been handed down for many generations. They were also dealing with a group of people or religious leaders called the Pharisees who were sort of the keepers of the rules.

Pharisees often are cast in an unfavorable light but in fact they were very much respected by the common person in Jesus day. They were looked on as being devout in their allegiance to God. The apostle Paul even listed being a Pharisee and keeper of the law as one of the good points on his early resume.

When Jesus says in verse 20: “But I warn you—unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven!”

Those who were listening were in shock. The scribes and the Pharisees made obedience to God’s law the master passion of their lives. They calculated that the law contained 248 commandments and 365 prohibitions, and they tried to keep them all. How could we ever surpass that? It is as though Jesus is saying, “Don’t think I have come to make things easier by reducing the demands of the Law. Far from it! In fact if your righteousness does not exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you’ll never make it! He appears to be equating righteousness with our ability to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Here we arrive at the heart of Christ’s teaching. It’s all about what’s on the inside. The Pharisees were great about outward righteousness but that is not enough. That is external and can be seem by other men and women. It can be appreciated and revered and even honored. Their man-made rules were an unconscious attempt to reduce the laws demands so that they were manageable. Their rules produced a sense of self-satisfaction. One Pharisee in the Bible was used as an illustration by Jesus. This self-righteous Pharisee stood looking at a poor publican and said, “I thank God that I am not like that man.” Jesus demands a deeper obedience than that. The Pharisees saw obedience quantitatively (how many) but Jesus always sees it qualitatively. (how deep)

Here are the three questions I want to answer today:

1. What did Jesus do to the Law?

A. He fulfilled the law with his person.

The law of the Old Testament found complete fulfillment in Jesus Christ. All throughout the Old Testament there was a system of sacrifices that had to be made to keep the law. People had to do things that were all a type or shadow of things to come through Christ. It is as though they were being conditioned to accept the ultimate sacrifice for sin that God would make someday with His own son.

You might say God was in the Old Testament establishing a conditioned reflex in the people just like scientists do with animals today.

Pavlov was a Russian engaged in pioneer work in the behavioral sciences. He wished to demonstrate that certain physical reflexes could be built into a person or an animal by external conditioning. He took a dog when it was quite young and began to feed it under special conditions. An anyone who has worked closely with animals knows, a dog’s mouth begins to produce saliva whenever food is set before it. Pavlov wondered if the physical reflex could be built into the dog to salivate even when there was no food before it. So he did this: Every time the young puppy was to be fed, a bell was first rung and then the food was placed before him. The bell was rung and the food appeared. This went on for a long time. Eventually, the day came for his test, Pavlov rang the bell as usual but this time had not food available. Still the dog’s mouth began to produce saliva; and thus Pavlov succeeded in showing that a natural physical reflex could be established by an external and artificial stimulus. That is what God was doing throughout the Old Testament period by means of the sacrifices. He was building a conditioned reflex into the people so that when Jesus Christ should come they would understand his coming, and when they sinned they would know they needed a substitute. The dog learned that a bell meant food and the people of Israel would learn that “sin meant death.” They would come to understand that to avoid death they would need a sacrifice. It was into this world that Jesus stepped as the sinless, unblemished lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.

B. He fulfilled the law by giving it a greater inwardness.

Until the time of Jesus keeping the law was all about the outside and keeping outside laws that people could see. Jesus brings a focus that goes much deeper than the outside and says, “As a man thinks in his heart so is he.”

C. He fulfilled the law by making it positive and constructive.

Even in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus was moving away from the “Thou shalt not. . .” and into here is what you “should do.” He laid out a plan for everyone’s life that is simple and yet profound because it makes us Christ’s body in this world.

Many people this week have asked where God was when the young man took thirty three lives at Virginia Tech last Monday. They like to ask that question anytime there is a tragedy. Do you want to know where God is? He is wherever you and I take Him. Could He show up without us? Of course, but we have been commissioned to go and share Him with the world. The world is extremely sinful and its only hope of changing is when Christ followers take their mission seriously and engage those around them in life changing conversations. What would have been different if a Christ follower or church would have engaged Cho’s family years ago? Is there a church somewhere that is sitting smugly in their seats each week but failing the community around them because they fail to be salt and light? How different things could be in our world if the church hadn’t become so inwardly focused.

2. Why do I need to avoid human-based righteousness?

A. It is primarily external and God looks at our hearts.

Jesus knew that although the scribes and the Pharisees were taking a great deal of time to sharpen up the outside of their lives they were incapable of doing anything about the true state of their hearts. In their hearts or their inner spiritual life they were as sinful and unacceptable to God as anyone else.

One day Jesus was addressing a group of Pharisees and this is what He said: 27 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity." Matthew 23:27

We can sometimes pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps morally at least to a certain extent. If you are an alcoholic, you can discipline yourself to attend the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and get rid of the habit of drink. You can get control of yourself and enter into a useful life. People will even admire you for having overcome this weakness of character. But although you can do all this outwardly, you cannot do anything about your heart. You can be scrupulous in the affairs of your life so that you are not the lest bit dishonest in business. But you cannot make your heart loving if your heart is not loving. You cannot make yourself humble if you are proud or driven by your ego. You cannot make yourself pure. God demands a transformation of the heart not just the appearance.

B. External righteousness whittles down the standards of the law and misses some of its most important parts.

The Pharisees were great definers! They could tell you in the smallest degree how to keep the Ten Commandments. When the law said, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” they could tell you precisely what one could do on the Sabbath and still keep the law, and what one could not do. You could move about on the Sabbath but only a day’s journey. You could eat, but not cook food; you could bandage a person who became hurt, but not apply ointment or anything actively to promote healing.

Jesus would look at their man-made rules and say you still haven’t kept God’s law but only a watered down version of it.

We are masters at rationalizing God’s commandments. We can often make it say whatever we want to do. God says human righteousness will always function like that.

C. Human-based righteousness is always self-glorifying instead of God-glorifying.

When we base our righteousness on our own actions and strengths we will ultimately seek our own glorification and honor.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks the question: “What is the chief end of man?” and it answers, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.” If you are basing your goodness on yourself and what you do or don’t do you will end up like the man in the story that Jesus told in Luke 18:

11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer[b]: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don’t cheat, I don’t sin, and I don’t commit adultery. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! 12 I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’ Luke 18:11-12

13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ 14 I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Luke 18:13-14

The apostle Paul knew what Jesus was trying to teach and wrote: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not of works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9

D. God never asked for human righteousness. He asks for divine righteousness.

You must start at your very spiritual core with the righteousness of God. This has nothing to do with joining a church, being baptized, taking communion or even showing up at church. This has nothing to do with working in the church or doing works of charity out in the world. This has nothing to do with who your parents or grandparents were or how many times you have been or done anything. You must start at the bottom and let God do something supernatural within you. You and I must submit ourselves to the power and purifying grace of God. When we have done the works that are often listed on men and women’s “look at me” lists we will still be nothing compared to the foundation of righteousness that God has put deep within us.

The great thing about this teaching is that when you truly have a divine righteousness you will want to do God’s will and that includes glorifying Him with your lives on this earth. It includes walking in community with each other and it includes answering the call of God with your life and living in such a way that you bring attention to God. You won’t be able to do anything else.

3. How am I going to live this out?

Last week I told you a story about a man named Saul who later became Paul the Apostle. He was a Pharisee who was persecuting and killing Christ followers after Jesus went back to be with His heavenly Father. He came to a crossroads in his life and realized how much his own righteousness didn’t really matter. If fact, it was taking him down the wrong road.

This caused him to write words of warnings for others throughout his life. He wrote about it to the church at Philippi:

“We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort, 4 though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more!

5 I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. 6 I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.

7 I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. 8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ.[c] For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!”


Paul was in essence filling out a balance sheet of his life. He lists everything about his human-based righteousness in one column and labels them liabilities but in the column marked assets he writes just three words: In Christ alone.

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee;
let the water and the blood,
from thy wounded side which flowed,
be of sin the double cure;
save from wrath and make me pure.

Not the labors of my hands
can fulfill thy law's commands;
could my zeal no respite know,
could my tears forever flow,
all for sin could not atone;
thou must save, and thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to the cross I cling;
naked, come to thee for dress;
helpless, look to thee for grace;
foul, I to the fountain fly;
wash me, Savior, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath,
when mine eyes shall close in death,
when I soar to worlds unknown,
see thee on thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.

How are you and I to live this teaching of Christ out in our daily lives?

I can only think of one way and that is a daily surrender and submission of your life to Him. Be careful how you do this because your righteous works can turn into self righteousness way too easily.

Do you believe that it is in Christ alone that you will find salvation or are you still trying to accumulate things that are going to earn heaven for you? Are you doing what you do so that God will think you are special? It just doesn’t work that way. Things you try to earn will take you to hell. Hell is full of human righteousness and man-made attempts to emulate God. Allowing Christ to inhabit your life takes care of the law, it takes care of you own self-righteousness and it takes care of you when someday you stand before God.

Can you pray this prayer? In my hands no price I bring, simply to your cross I cling.

God will wash you. God will cleanse you and He will give you a righteousness that is far above anything that man can attain on his own. And someday He will receive you on the basis of that righteousness into heaven.

Let’s pray.



2007/04/22