Righteousness That Exceeds

Greeneville Seventh-day Adventist Church: Remember counterculture we've been talking about as we've been going through the book of Matthew and we find that ⁓ Jesus is giving sermon on the mount and people are hearing about things that are supposed to work that really they haven't been trying. you're one of our students that was in week of prayer last year, you can close your ears. I'm gonna tell a story again. I know you don't like to hear stories again. Kevin and I were best friends. And Kevin, what we had in common was we were the two smallest people in the classroom. That's all we had in common, really. But, so we were best friends. So Kevin and I, we just meet each other in sixth grade. I've come to a new school and, We're getting along pretty well and Kevin's a little different than I am. I was basically an only child because my brother was kind of grown and out of the house already. And Kevin wasn't experiencing that. He had six brothers and sisters in the same house. Now his parents, they worked as hard as my parents, maybe even harder, but they didn't have as much because all those kids were in Adventist education. And so as we got to be friends, my mom would say, we'd go on vacation, hey, you wanna bring Kevin along? Because otherwise Kevin wouldn't get to do things like that. And they never went on vacation. He had never seen the beach before, anything like that. And so my parents was, hey, we're going to go spend two weeks down in St. Augustine, see if Kevin wants to come and camp on the beach. And he'd be thrilled. He'd get to go do all those things that Kevin and his brothers and sisters never got to do. And he'd come home, and they'd all be jealous that he went and did these things. And we got along real well together. And about halfway through sixth grade, a new kid came. His name is Carlos. And Carlos was head and shoulders above us. Carlos was a big guy. And Carlos, for some reason, looked at us and became our friend. Like he said, I'm going be friends with the little guys. And so Carlos was our buddy and we kind of liked that because he could keep the bullies away a bit. And he was our friend. And we had a lot of fun together and then we moved on into seventh grade and we were pretty inseparable. And then we got into eighth grade and Carlos started changing how he thought about things. And he was just getting bigger and we weren't. ⁓ So I realized later that basically we had become playthings for Carlos. And I didn't understand what manipulation was. And he decided he just wanted to have fun with us, which was not for our good. And he started manipulating Kevin. Hey, I'm not sure Kent's such a great guy. And then he kind of made, do you know what Kevin said about you? Drama was starting with boys. This was weird. And I didn't know how to handle that. I still liked Kevin. I thought Kevin still liked me, but I felt a rift happening in our friendship and Carlos is sitting back there scheming what he can do next. and we're sitting in English class and the teacher's not paying attention and our English teacher didn't pay attention hardly ever and we're over there, we're in one these little table groups of four but there were only three of us there and Carlos said, hey, you don't like each other anymore, do you? I'm like, what? And Kevin's like, yeah. Really, you don't like me? And Kevin said, yeah, and Carla says, I know what you guys need. You need to have a fight. What? Yeah, you guys, you need to have a fight. Do you want to fight? And Kevin's like, yeah. See, Kevin grew up in that big household. He was used to fighting. I was not. I have anybody to fight with. And I'm like. And Kevin's like, yeah, I wanna have a fight. And they looked at me, you wanna have a fight? And you know, in the mind of a little boy, you you've got all this kind of pride and stuff that's trying to work itself out. And I was like, yeah, I wanna have a fight. Did I just say that? Wow, I don't wanna have a fight. But I said it because that was expected of kids my age. Yeah, you don't wanna back down in front of a challenge. And I was like, oh, I went home worried. because the fight was scheduled. Tomorrow, after school, church parking lot. It's a great place for fights. Usually it's reserved for board meeting, but church parking lot this time. And there was a grassy spot between two bushes, so Carlos said, yeah, that spot right there. Tomorrow, after school, fight. Word got out. And I go home, I'm like, oh no. Gonna have a fight. And I looked in the mirror and I tried to look mean. It's hard to look mean with bangs. And I made a fist and looked in the mirror. It didn't scare me and I knew it wouldn't scare Kevin. I didn't even know how to make a fist. Do you put your thumb in there? No, it seemed like I remember my big brother saying that would break your thumb. So, thumb out. And I get to the dinner table and I'm worried and I'm just kind of picking at my food. I don't think my mom really noticed, but she's got other things on her mind and I didn't want to tell my parents, no way, because the principal's gonna get called and it's gonna be a big scene. I'm gonna be a tattletale and all this nonsense. ⁓ ⁓ And my mom, she's eating over there and my dad's over here and he's watching Sanford and Son on the television. And ⁓ my mom said, hey, Kent, what? We're going camping weekend after this. Why don't you invite Kevin to go with us? Really? Yeah, you'd like that. You and Kevin, you know, your best friend. Okay. I didn't tell her, yeah, I'm about to get beat up by Kevin tomorrow right after school. You be sure you ask him tomorrow, okay? You be sure you ask Kevin to come camping with us. I said, okay. We're going to Cades Cove. I said, okay. And so we're sitting in English class again, teachers not paying attention, and Kevin and I, we're sitting there nervously. Carlos is like, yeah, we're gonna have a fight. There's gonna be a good fight. And he's telling other people there's gonna be a fight. These guys aren't best friends anymore. There's gonna be a fight. And then when he quit talking, I said, hey, Kevin, my mom wants to know if you want to go camping next weekend at Cades Cove. Suddenly his face changed. What? Really? And Carlos looked panicked. He saw all of his schemes unraveling right there. ⁓ And Kevin said, yeah, you'd let me come? I said, sure. Mom said to ask you. I didn't really want him to come right then, but was doing what my mom said. And yeah, mom said that you could come camping with us. Really? Yeah, she said, don't forget your sleeping bag, blah, blah, blah. Wow, that's going to be fun. I said, yeah. And Carlos was like, wait, you're still gonna have a fight, aren't you? Well, yeah, yeah, huh, huh, yeah, we're gonna fight, yeah, yeah. And Carlos wasn't sure what to make of it, and after school, we went up to the church parking lot, got between those two big bushes, and I made that fist I had been practicing making, and Kevin, in the meantime, he hit me in the jaw, and it hurt. And I hit him in the stomach, and it didn't hurt. And we looked at each other and we started laughing. And we tackled Carlos. But he could walk away with one of us under each arm, but you know, we tried. Love works. Even sometimes when you don't feel it and you still act it out. I didn't feel love, but I said love. And it worked. And that's what Jesus is trying to get through here on the Sermon on the Mount. This is stuff that doesn't make sense. Now the Sermon on the Mount probably lasted around 25 minutes. Shorter than today's sermon, I'm afraid. And in that 25 minutes, Jesus managed to turn the congregation's world upside down. Jesus undid generations of wrong theology and lifestyle in 25 minutes. And then he flipped their world right side up and then brought them to their knees. The depth of this discourse that takes only 25 minutes takes forever to probe. We've been trying to figure this sermon out for 2,000 years. Last week we looked in the counterculture of the Beatitudes. Things that we as Christians have heard all our lives were mind-blowing to the first hearers. The meek inherit the earth. Really? We also looked at what it means to be the salt of the earth, needing to mingle before we can be effective. Salt doesn't do any good when it sits on the table and remains in the shaker. But Jesus wasn't done. He starts now talking about light. You may think that this is subway parallels the salt analogy, but not totally. Look at Matthew chapter five and go down to verse 14. It says, you are the light of the world. Okay, do you remember what he said about salt? You are the salt of the earth. It doesn't say you will become salt or you will become light. It says you are light. But wait a minute, I thought Jesus was the light of the world, right? John 812 says this, then Jesus spoke to them again saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life. In the next chapter, you can find the story of Jesus healing the man born blind by rubbing mud into his eyes and telling him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. I was in the pool of Siloam and I washed my eyes. I still needed glasses. It didn't work. All that I gained from that was I smelled a little bit like sewage. It was kind of nasty water. I am not the light. of the world on my own. Jesus had not commanded me to go wash. I did it on my own. And I have to reflect Jesus because I am not the light. Jesus is the true light. And just as the moon referred to in Genesis as the light to govern the night, we all learn at an early age that the moon is totally dark. It produces no light of itself. It merely reflects the light of the sun that it is facing. Humility is realizing that there is no light in me. Have you ever met somebody that thought they were the light? And they think very highly of themselves, but everybody else looks like, all he sees is darkness. There's no light within ourselves. All the light that comes from me is merely a reflection of the Son whom I'm facing, the Son of God. Matthew 514 again, you are the light of the world, a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Now Jesus, he often used things that people could see and from where he was teaching beside the Sea of Galilee, if you look across Galilee and up on a hill there's one city and you can see it from all the way around Galilee and it was the ancient Roman city named Susita in Hebrew and Hippos in Greek. and but in either language that means horse by the way hippopotamus means river horse and they minted coins there and of course the emblem was a horse on that coin and while this city was easily visible all during the day including while Jesus is giving this message When nighttime came, that city was lit up. It was the only thing on the whole hill all the way around Galilee that was lit up. All the candles, all the lamps, everything in that city was lit up and everybody knew what Jesus was talking about. You can't hide a city on a hill when it's lit up. It just draws your attention to it. And then Jesus describes it another way, a way that each person could be reminded of by simply being in their own typical one room house. Verse 15, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lamp stand and it gives light to all who are in the house. I went over and helped with worship yesterday with the first and second graders and we sang this little light of mine, you know, hide it under bush ⁓ no. That's what we're talking about. You don't light it and then hide it. The light is for everyone according to this verse. Verse 16, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify you because you're such a swell guy. Is that what it says? Okay. That they may see your good works and glorify who? Your father. in heaven. Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings puts it this way, but Jesus did not bid the disciples, strive to make your light shine. He said, let it shine. If Christ is dwelling in the heart, it is impossible to conceal the light of his presence. On the switch side, if he's not in your heart, you don't have light. So the light shines out from the Christian without effort. They just let it happen, just as it is no effort for the moon to reflect the mighty power of the sun. Verse 16 again. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Here is where the stories of salt and light are different. Salt is the character of the Beatitudes being lived out within the community. The work of salt is basically invisible. You can't look at your meal and say, I think that has too much salt in it. You have to taste and say, it's invisible. Its presence just makes things better. Light, on the other hand, is something to be seen. This is the character of the Beatitudes being intentionally allowed to be seen so that the power of God would be glorified and attract people to Him like moths to the light of your front porch. This is not what the Pharisees were doing when they were doing good works. They did it so they would be praised by men and Jesus tells them they have their reward. The only reward they get is for you to go, woohoo, you did a good job there. Slap on the back. When our lives bring glory to God, the reward is an eternity with him. So silent as salt and bright as light, this was revolutionary. Or was it revelationary? I like that word. Let's make it a word. Revelationary. It was revealed. But what Christ is about to say is revolutionary. In a few verses, he's about to say that their righteousness has to surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law before they could enter the kingdom of heaven. Remember, this is more than the kingdom of heaven at the second coming. This includes living today with that kingdom in our hearts. You can't even go there unless your righteousness exceeds that of scribes and Pharisees. These people would have been shocked when they first heard these words. In their minds, in their world, the Pharisees and teachers of the law were next to God himself. They all envy them. I wish I had that kind of self-control. I wish I had whatever it is they have. And then here comes this man named Jesus speaking with authority who says of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, no, no, never, never, ⁓ way are you close to God. So in the verses that we're about to look through, try once again to put yourselves in the sandals of those listening, scattered over that hillside, overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Their upside down world is about to be turned right side up. Matthew 5 verse 17. Do not think that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot, one tittle, know what, will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. ⁓ from the law till all is fulfilled. What does that mean? Well, Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus had talked about Christian character in the Beatitudes, but now he begins to talk about such character found in the Old Testament and Jewish legal code. One thing that Jesus wants his followers to be clear on is his relationship with the Old Testament, the scripture of the day. He makes it very plain that he is in harmony with the scriptures, the law and the prophets. Remember when the Jews refer to the law, they mean more than just the Ten Commandments. They mean Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. this numbers in Deuteronomy you read through there there's some stuff in there as I'm reading through the Bible through again right now I'm in numbers it's taking a while there's so much and sometimes I admit I skim through okay this many of this and this okay I'm going down to get done with that it's hard to read that now these are all books that point to the Messiah coming From Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve were told of a Savior through the sanctuary service which showed the purpose of the Savior and that He would die for us. He has come to fulfill all of that, not to abolish it. There's about three ways that I know of that He can fulfill this. Number one, Jesus accomplished or obeyed the requirements of the Old Testament through His obedient wife. Number two, He brought out the full meaning of the Scriptures through His teachings. This is what He's demonstrating here with with the Sermon on the Mount. And number three, he fulfilled the predictive elements of the Old Testament, both prophecy and the sacrificial service. So in these verses, Jesus lays out his relationship to the law, and then Jesus lays out the Christian's relationship to the law. Verse 19 again. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. There are many that teach God's law or even the Old Testament were done away with. Jesus begs to differ. We're not only to practice it, we are to teach others to practice it. When Jesus fulfilled the sacrificial section of the Old Testament, those elements were no longer to be practiced because they had been completed in him. To continue to practice that would to deny that it was finished. But they're not to be ignored because they still proved to all who will study them that Jesus is the Messiah. We no longer slay a lamb because the true lamb has been slain. service was pointing to, but that service points to so much more that becomes unknown if we say it was done away with. I know people that claim to be New Testament Christians with the implication that the Old Testament is of little or no value today. The irony is that the New Testament cannot be truly understood without the Old Testament. It's a foundationless religion. I have to shake my head at the names of some churches. Like one I saw the other day, said, full gospel New Testament church. How can they be full gospel without the Old Testament? Which explains who the Messiah is supposed to be. And what are they implying about other churches? They don't have the full gospel? I thought about putting up a sign next door that said future home of the three quarters gospel church. We almost have the truth. The people Jesus is talking to on the hillside know nothing about the New Testament. It's not even been written yet. They have no idea that they're part of the story of what happens when the truth of the Old Testament is made known. They become Christians with only the Old Testament. They would not have believed it if they had been told that 2,000 years later, we would be envying them the privilege of hearing these words from the lips of Jesus himself. But one day, if we take these words to heart, we will be able to tell our own story to the universe about how we met Jesus and what he did for us, about how he turned our world upside down from upside down to right side up. Are you a New Testament Christian? I hope so, but I hope you're an Old Testament Christian too. You know, I have this book on my shelf, New Testament with Psalms. Isn't that the way it always is? New Testament and Psalms. It's like the Psalms is the only part of the Old Testament that's worthwhile. So we included that. Look. Look at this. Look at what you're missing. All of that if you just have this. Now this would be better than nothing by far. But it would be so much harder to understand it in its fullness without that Old Testament behind you. Verse 20, for what I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Those words were a shocker. The scribes and Pharisees spent their whole lives meditating on the law and trying to live up to its demands. Not only did they discover 613 commandments in the books of Moses, 248 were positive, 365 were negative. But they also built up a massive amount of oral tradition or laws to support and protect those commandments. For example, they developed 1,521 rules for keeping the Sabbath alone. That's it. know rules that were like this, if you want to take your pen to church on Sabbath, you put it in your jacket pocket on preparation day because otherwise you're carrying it. It's okay if your coat carries it to church but you can't carry it. Okay, good luck with that. Their oral tradition. It covered every aspect of life, not just the Sabbath. An individual had to be amazingly sincere to live up to that kind of life. And I've heard so many times, even from some of my own relatives, that God judges how sincere you are in your beliefs. Well, you might be wrong, but you're sincere. That's all that matters. I'm sorry, but ⁓ Proverbs 14-12 as well as 16-25, which is not in the New Testament with just the Psalms. This is Proverbs. ⁓ There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end leads to what? What was it? Death? Whoa, whoa, whoa, that's kind of brutal. But I thought it was doing right. Sorry. Leads to death. What does this mean? We may be sincere, but we may be sincerely wrong in such a way that leads us down a path to a place we don't want to go. When I was a teenager, I had some friends that had gone on an amazing hike and I saw their pictures. They were out in Yosemite National Park and there's Half Dome up there majestically standing and they had hiked to the top of Half Dome. Oh, I wanted to do that so badly. And then the day came, I went with my parents on a trip out west. We stopped at Yosemite. They already knew we're climbing Half Dome. And we got out there and we found the trailhead and started out early in the morning and we're doing really well. But somewhere along the way, we missed a turn. I don't remember seeing a sign, but we missed it. And as we hiked and hiked and hiked and then hiked and hiked and hiked, I was 100 % sure that we were on the right trail. My sincerity did not put me at the top of Half Dome. We missed it altogether. I've still never been there. I think we should take up a collection. My sincerity did not alter the destination. We were on the wrong path, but we're so sure of ourselves that we didn't turn around till it was too late. I do not question the sincerity of the legalists today, but I weep over the destination. Jesus is not talking about us being judged on sincerity. It is we are judged on your righteousness. Uh-oh. The fact that all our righteousness is filthy rags is not yet brought out. The fact that it is only the righteousness of Christ that stands in the place of filthy rags is not yet explained. Had Jesus said these things to this Jewish audience, they would have tuned him out. The primary concern was with law and works. But the way that it is said that your righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law would elicit the immediate response from the multitude of that's him. That is Jesus. What are you? It is impossible to be better than those guys. They're the best. They're right up there next to God. It's impossible. the idea would have tickled their Jewish fancy enough to get them to come to the conclusion that if this is true, help us God. if this is true, we need divine help. And that's what's true in order to have that kind of righteousness. Then Jesus proceeds to share with these amazed people what the law of God looks like when people have the law written by God on their hearts, not just two tables of stone. The emphasis is not on the quantity of rules, it's on the quality of those rules, how you are living them out in your life. It is not just the letter of the law that's important, it's the spirit of the law that's important as well. And that can only be kept with the spirit of the law giver dwelling in our hearts. Now we're not gonna spend in depth time on these next verses because we did that not long ago when we did a series on the Ten Commandments. We went through some of these things. But in here Jesus explains that the spirit of the law against murder is that we shouldn't even remain angry at a brother. That we should settle matters quickly. Then he shares that the spirit of the law against adultery is more than just a physical act. What's in your head? What are you thinking about? Don't even go down that path of those kind of thoughts. And then he lists the dangers divorce and all of that goes with that and then Jesus wants us to make sure that we speak plain truth. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Just be honest. He talks about how we shouldn't resist an evil person but give them more than they wanted to take to begin with and that we should love our enemies and pray for our persecutors. I was walking down the street in a town in South Georgia a few years ago. a headline in one of those newspaper boxes caught my eye. And I went over to look to see if I was seeing it right. And this was right after the George Floyd riots were getting going and things like that. And I looked at the headline and there was a typo that had caught my attention. know, big, bold headline letters that said, Black loves matter. the I had been switched to an O. Love matters. That's what Jesus is saying. The law is not just a bunch of regulations, it is love. That's what matters. It is how we demonstrate our love for God and each other. So how can we do away with the commandments of God? That's doing away with love itself. The last verse we read in Matthew 5 then throws people for a loop. Verse 48. Therefore you shall be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect. this all just went down the tubes, didn't it? Okay, sermon over, be perfect. Really? What's he talking about here? Therefore you shall be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect. Now many use this verse to justify their legalistic tendencies and pounding you on the head because you're not like them. But this is a deception, a deception that echoes the temptation of Eve in Genesis 3. You remember when the serpent said, you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. This is Satan offering Eve a shortcut to being like God. Just have a taste. He did the same temptation with Jesus in the wilderness. He did the same temptation with the Pharisees and he does the same thing with us today. This is not perfection, this is perversion. There is no shortcut to being like God. There's only one way. John 14, six says, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Steps to Christ puts it this way. The condition of eternal life is now just what it has always been, just what it was in paradise before the fall of our first parents, perfect obedience to the law of God, perfect righteousness. If eternal life were granted on any condition short of this, then the happiness of the whole universe would be imperiled. The way would be open for sin with all its train of woe and misery to be immortalized. It was possible for Adam before the fall to form a righteous character by obedience to God's law, but he failed to do this and because of his sin, our natures are fallen and we cannot make ourselves righteous. Since we are sinful, unholy, we cannot perfectly obey the holy law. We have no righteousness of our own with which to meet the claims of the law of God. But, aren't you glad there's a but? Christ has made a way of escape for us. He lived on earth amid trials and temptations such as we have to meet. He lived a sinless life. He died for us and now he offers to take our sins and give us his righteousness. If you give yourself to him and accept him as your savior, then sinful as your life may have been, for his sake you are accounted righteous. What a deal. Christ's character stands in place of your character and you are accepted before God just as if you had not sinned. It's at this point, out of love and gratitude and a desire to be like Jesus, that we seek his spirit to guide us to be the way that God wants us to be. Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect. Has the word therefore. Whenever you see the word therefore, you have to ask, why is the therefore there for? Because it's there for a reason. This verse does not stand alone. If it did, we would be doomed. The context is the previous section that begins with telling the people that they must have a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees. This drives us to our knees in seeking divine help, then assures us of salvation in Jesus Christ and calls us to the abundant life that he has in store for us even now. The context shows what that looks like as we understand the law of God is the law of love. The transcript of his character, love to God and love to man, including those that are enemies. That's what God is like. That is a righteousness only attainable through the sacrifice of Jesus. There's no shortcut for this. If there was, Jesus would have taken it. Let this cup pass from me. So again, the question, does love work really? One day, I was caring for my mother. She didn't have long to live. And the medications were making her a bit loopy and seeing things that weren't there. And I often took the night shift and stayed with her. And then I do work during the day. I was living on maybe two, sometimes three hours of sleep a day, day after day after day. And I could feel the exhaustion from lack of sleep. And my patience was not what it should be, though I don't think that I was showing it. I think I was doing pretty good keeping that mask up. What can I do for you now, Then in the midst of exhaustion and her confusion, my mother had a lucid moment. And she said, Kent? Instantly, love made it all worthwhile. The exhaustion just seemed to fall off. The impatience disappeared. My world was a much better place than it had been just a few seconds before. I think love matters. Thank you for that love. May it inspire us to treat each other the way you treat us, with love, grace, forgiveness. And bless us as we live for you, in Jesus' name, amen.

Matthew 5:17