"Law: in 3D" Matthew 5:17-20 Sunday Morning Worship Service

It was a birthday at our house this week, and our family celebrates birthdays.

This is from my wife's side of the family more than mine.

We celebrate birthdays.

It's a production.

In the time leading up to the birthday, we are asking the birthday child, what do you want for your birthday?

And what should we tell grandma you want?

And Mimi you want.

And we're corralling gift ideas.

And you know, the guy in brown brings us a growing pile of gifts as the weeks bring forward towards the birthday.

They pile up on our uh fireplace.

We talk about what do you want for dinner that night on your birthday night.

You get to choose your own dinner, and the child chooses it, and it's kind of a production, and uh one of our other kids decorates the room with like birthday streamers, and it's your birthday, and it's it's out of control.

Uh there's even a table, like a spot at the table that is set with the red birthday plate, and that's where the birthday person sits.

And then at birthday, at the birthday dinner, we take turns saying nice things about the person.

We say nice things about each other all the time, but specifically nice things about that person on their birthday, and then afterwards, we've eaten the appropriate meal and said the appropriate things and opened the mound of gifts, and it's ice cream sundae time, and we have ice cream sundays, and it's the birthday time, and then the girls get to do a sleepover with each other in the basement.

They bust out their sleeping bags and spend the night in the basement, and it is a celebration that ends when it is appropriately done, and I have to then go clean up all of the stuff, the tissue paper, and then wash the dishes and put away the red plate back where it goes and roll up the sleeping bags because little hands can't do that, and shove them back away, and it's over until the next time.

Now, what if the celebration is over, the ice cream has been put away by me and some of it also put back in the freezer, the sleeping bags are rolled up.

What if, as I'm doing that, one of the non-birthday kids comes forward and says, Hey, why are you putting everything away?

And I would say, because we just did the birthday thing.

We you were there, we just did it.

Like, no, I feel like by you putting it away, you are abolishing birthdays.

You're actually opposed to birthdays because you're putting that red plate back in the cabinet.

If you love birthdays, you would leave it out here.

Or let's even go to a little bit more of an extreme.

It comes time for dinner and everybody's around the table, and the birthday girl goes to sit in the seat with the red plate, and her sister says, Don't sit there.

We're saving that for the birthday person.

And the birthday person says, This is me.

You recognize me, right?

Hi.

No, don't sit there, because if you sit there, then all of this, all of the streamers will come down and the food will be eaten, and we can't do that.

We want to keep it like it is.

It's the anticipation that we want, not the celebration.

It would actually be a pretty rude thing to say, especially to the birthday girl.

Like, don't you dare sit there.

We like it just like it is without you in the chair.

But don't you understand that I'm putting the sleeping bags away not because I hate sleeping bags or I hate birthdays, but because it happens.

The celebration happened.

The red plate goes back, not because I'm abolishing birthdays, but because it happened.

We celebrated it.

The person came and sat in their chair and we said nice things about her, and it's done.

This was the transition the Pharisees couldn't make in their minds in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

They had everything set up for the Messiah to come.

They had the streamers out, the seat for Elijah at the table, they had everything just so in anticipation for the Messiah.

But they had grown defensive of the preparations and they had the law that pointed forward to the Savior, and they promoted themselves as guardians of the law, and they had everything just like it was.

The only thing that could mess it up is if the birthday boy actually came.

And they weren't able to stomach that.

And so when Jesus arrives on the scene, he begins teaching in a way that points the law towards himself.

The Pharisees are confronted by this and offended by this, and so they will accuse him of coming to abolish the law.

That's the accusation.

I mean, the context where we are in Matthew 5 and verse 17 is that the disciples and this massive crowd of people are out on the plains there outside by the Sea of Galilee, outside of Capernaum.

Jesus is teaching them.

They're going to come back down off the mountain, come back from the plain, go back to Capernaum and Tiberias and Magdala and all the villages around Galilee.

They're going to go back there, and when they go back there, the Pharisees will be waiting for them to ambush them, and they accuse, the Pharisees accuse them of coming to break the law, to abolish the law, to set aside the law of Moses.

Jesus is aware that that's going to happen.

It's going to come right as soon as the Sermon Mount is done.

They're going to come back to Capernaum and they'll be waiting.

They're going to cut to the grain fields on the way back, and the Pharisees are going to say, Why do your disciples always pluck grain on the Sabbath, which isn't lawful for you to do?

Jesus is going to heal the man with the withered hand in the synagogue in Capernaum on the Sabbath.

And the Pharisees are going to be upset because he's working on the Sabbath, and he shouldn't do that.

This is going to be the motif.

The rest of his ministry, they're seeking to confront him, and they accuse him of setting aside the law of Moses.

But the truth is, Jesus isn't setting it aside.

He's actually coloring it in.

And to make that point, even in the Sermon on the Mount, we'll look at this over the next few months.

Jesus gives six contrasts.

That's what the next part of the Sermon on the Mount is.

Six contrasts between how he teaches and how the Pharisees taught.

The Pharisees taught the law of Moses said this.

Jesus teaches the truth behind that.

So for example, the Pharisees say, Don't murder.

And Jesus says, I tell you, if you have hatred in your heart towards somebody, you're guilty of breaking the sixth commandment.

The Pharisees said, Don't commit adultery.

And Jesus says, But I tell you, if you have lust for a person in your heart, you're guilty of breaking the seventh commandment.

The Pharisees say, you can have a certificate of divorce for this or that or the other reason.

And Jesus says, I tell you, if you divorce your wife and marry another, you're coveting your neighbor's wife.

You're guilty of adultery.

Sixth commandment of coveting, tenth commandment.

The Pharisees said, if you're going to swear, swear this way and that way, but not by this and not by that.

And Jesus says, I'm telling you not to swear at all.

Don't swear at all.

You break the ninth commandment.

The Pharisees say, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, with their getting from the Torah.

And Jesus says, I tell you, don't resist the evil person.

Walk with them two miles.

The Pharisees say, Love your neighbor, hate your enemy.

And Jesus says, I tell you, pray for your enemy.

It's the second greatest commandment.

So he's reorienting the law, of course, Jesus says he's getting to the truth.

He's not abolishing it, he's filling it up from the inside.

And the Pharisees were not, they didn't have the capacity, the thematic capacity in their mind to distinguish between an attack on their traditions and rituals and an attack on the Torah.

So when Jesus says, the Pharisees say this, but I'm saying the truth is over here, in the Pharisees' minds, Jesus is saying, set aside the whole law.

They took any criticism of their, the way they construed the law as an attack on the law itself.

That's the context in which the Sermon on the Mount takes place.

Of course, there's the introduction to the sermon, which is the Beatitudes.

There's kind of the proposition statement of the sermon, which is you're a city on the hill, you're the salt of the earth, let your light shine.

And now we're into the body of the sermon.

He gets right into six points, six ways that he is different than what the Pharisees teach, and Jesus is teaching not just as different than the Pharisees, but it's the real heart behind the law.

Behind all of this is the basic statement of verse 17.

Do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets.

The Old Testament has the law, the prophets, the writings, the history.

The Jews just didn't refer to it that way.

They obviously didn't call it the Old Testament.

They use the phrase law and prophets.

It stands in for what we would call the Old Testament.

It includes the writings, it includes all of the Old Testament.

So when you see Law and Prophets here, he's not just talking about the Torah.

He's not just talking about the major prophets.

Law and the prophets is an expression.

It means what we would call the whole Old Testament.

And Jesus says, I didn't come to abolish it.

I didn't come to erase it.

I didn't come to tear it out of your ESVs.

He came, he says, to fulfill it.

To fulfill it.

That's the heart of what's happening in this passage.

That Jesus fulfills the law.

And the word fulfill is the word for filling up from the inside out.

You have a coloring sheet with the outside line on it, and you color in the drawing.

That's fulfilling it, filling it up from the inside out.

You have a picture with ice or in the Israeli world with rocks in it or a big container for water that might have rocks in it, and you fill it up with water.

The water fills in all the crevices, fills in all the space between all the rocks, goes all the way to the top.

It's filled up from the inside out.

Just fills in every which way.

That's this word.

And Jesus says, I didn't come to erase the line on the outside of the drawing.

I didn't come to break the picture.

I came to fill it up from the inside.

The Pharisees, of course, thought he came to oppose the law because Jesus ignored the Pharisees' own construction of the law, and they couldn't tell the difference between their errant construction of the law and God's inerrant word.

And so questioning them was the same thing as questioning God.

And so they are going to ambush Jesus and say, You are annulling the law, abolishing the law, breaking the law.

And Jesus, this is all setting up for Matthew 15, verse 3, by the way, when Jesus finally goes face to face with the Pharisees and says, You're the ones that abolish the law by your own traditions.

Matthew 15:3

The very thing they accuse Jesus of doing, he's going to turn it around and say, You're the ones who are breaking the law.

But for now, he's preparing his disciples and saying, I, when you hear this, no it's not true.

Jesus is saying, I did not come to abolish the law.

He never opposed the Torah.

He opposed the false teachers of the Torah.

He opposed the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Sanhedrin.

He opposed them, the religious leaders of Israel.

He opposed them, but he never opposed the Torah.

In fact, far from opposing it, he fulfills it.

He fulfills it in two ways.

First, he fulfills it by who he is.

He says, I fulfill it basically by who I am.

I haven't come to abolish, but I came to fulfill them.

This is an expression all over Matthew's gospel.

That he's doing things in order to fulfill what the scripture says about those things.

So for example, the Old Testament says there will arise from Israel a leader like Moses.

It's a very basic prophecy in the Old Testament.

Jesus says, I am coming to fulfill the law of Moses, meaning that he is that leader to which the law of Moses points.

The Old Testament says that there will be Psalm 89, that God made a covenant with David, and there will be a descendant from David's line who will be the king over Israel.

Jesus comes and he's fulfilling Psalm 89 to Samuel 7.

He's fulfilling the promises.

There will be a leader like Moses and a king like David.

Jesus says, that's him.

He's fulfilling it.

There'll be a prophet like Elisha, that Elijah will prepare the way, and a prophet like Elisha will come, bringing deliverance and miracles to Israel, and Jesus is fulfilling that.

There'll be a victor like Joshua, somebody who delivers his people, only not from Jericho, but from sin.

And Jesus is that deliverer like Joshua.

There'll be a ruler from Judah.

The scepter will never depart from Judah, Moses writes.

And Jesus comes fulfilling that.

He is the king from the line of Judah.

There will be a seed from Abraham.

They'll bring peace to the nations.

Whoever blesses it will be blessed.

Whoever curses it will be cursed.

And so Jesus is fulfilling that Abrahamic covenant.

He is the promised seed.

So there are a million of those kind of prophecies in the Old Testament, and Jesus is saying it's all pointing towards him.

He's the fulfiller of those things.

So much so that Psalm 40, verse 7, is a prophecy pointing forward to the Savior that when the Savior comes, he will say this: Behold, I've come in the scroll of the book.

Psalms 40:7

It's written of me.

When the Savior comes, he can say that the Torah, the law and the prophecy, it's about him.

It's not a list of things for him to do, it's a description of who he will be.

So when Jesus says that he fulfills the law, he's saying he is the object.

He's the one described in the law.

He is the object of the prophecy.

It is about him.

And you see this all over Matthew's gospel.

Matthew 1, verse 22.

Matthew 1:22

Jesus is born to a virgin.

Why?

And you can give theological explanations for that.

When I preached in Matthew 1, I did that.

I explained why the virgin birth was important.

It demonstrates the sinlessness of Christ, that sin is passed down from Adam.

Jesus is truly human, but not in Adam's line because of the virgin birth.

There's other reasons as well.

But Matthew doesn't give you those reasons in Matthew 1.

He just says he was born to a virgin in order to fulfill what the prophets said, referencing Isaiah.

Or Matthew 2, verse 15.

Matthew 2:15

Jesus fled to Egypt.

Why did he go to Egypt?

And there's all kinds of patterns in that and typology in that, that Israel is rescued from Egypt and Jesus is a true and better Israel.

But Matthew doesn't give you those reasons.

Matthew says he went to Egypt so that what is written in the 12 in Hosea would be fulfilled.

Out of Egypt I called my son.

Matthew 2, verse 17, the infants are slaughtered, Jesus is spared.

Matthew 2:17

Why?

Again, a whole bunch of reasons going on, a whole bunch of typology in Israel's history.

Matthew doesn't give you that.

He just says this is written to fulfill what was spoken of by the prophet of Jeremiah, that there will be weeping in Ramah.

Matthew 4, verse 14.

Matthew 4:14

Why is Jesus in Galilee instead of Jerusalem?

Why did he go to a place that's predominantly Gentile instead of where all the Jews were if he's the Savior of Israel?

Well, again, there's reasons for that, that the light would shine through the Gentile worlds to Israel that would refract it to the nations.

We talked about this a few weeks ago.

But that's not what Matthew says in Matthew 4, verse 14.

Matthew 4:14

He says, Jesus went to Galilee in order to fulfill what was written in the scriptures, the Savior would come from beyond the Jordan through Galilee, Naphtali, Zebulun, so that the light would be from the world of the Gentiles.

Over and over again, Matthew's looking at what Jesus does and saying, this is fulfilling prophecy.

Jesus is the object of all of these prophecies.

He's fulfilling it.

There's so many that this is just taking you to the first four chapters of Matthew.

This goes on through the rest of Matthew, it is like this.

You're probably most familiar with it as his death.

I mean, all of the things that happened around his death.

Why did all those things happen?

There's reasons behind all of them, of course.

But Matthew spares you all the reasons and just says that it happened to fulfill a prophecy.

I mean, the Old Testament says that his clothes will be stripped off of him and cast loss for his clothing.

And that happens to him when he's on the cross in order to fulfill prophecy.

Zechariah 11 says that he will be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, and that silver will be cast into the potter's house.

And that's what happens.

Judah betrays him, 30 pieces of silver, his conscience is pricked, and he tries to give the money back, and they reject it, and he throws it into the potter's house.

To fulfill scripture.

The law says none of his bones will be broken.

Speaking of the prophecy about the Passover lamb, and so none of his bones were broken to fulfill prophecy.

David Psalm 22 writes that from the cross he will cry out, Father, why have you abandoned me?

And again, there's all kinds of theological questions and implications of that.

It's not what Matthew goes with, though.

Matthew just goes with this happened, he made that cry to fulfill the scripture that was spoken.

And it's beyond specific verses.

He fulfilled whole themes of the Old Testament.

The Passover Lamb theme, for example.

He fulfills that.

Established an Exodus repeated throughout the Old Testament, that there is a lamb who is put forward, whose blood will be put on the doorpost, that the angel of death will pass over the house, not based on the virtue of those in it, but based upon the blood of the lamb.

Jesus is that Passover lamb.

He fulfills that whole trajectory in the Old Testament.

He fulfilled the motif of redemption, that God's people will be purchased back out of captivity.

You see this through the Ten Plagues, through Hosea selling the shirt off his back to buy his wife back.

You see it over and over and over again, the theme of redemption.

Jesus fulfills that theme by paying the redemption.

He redeems us from the power of sin, not with gold or silver or precious metals, but with the blood, his precious blood.

He fulfilled the promise to Abraham up on the mountain where God tells Abraham, Don't hold back the knife, Abraham.

I will provide the sacrifice.

And you wait, and you wait and you wait and you wait.

And then Jesus is that sacrifice, crucified, probably on the very place where Abraham had tied down Isaac.

He fulfills the priestly line.

The type in the Old Testament, there will be a priest who stands before the people of Israel and brings their offering and incense and sacrifices to God.

Only Jesus isn't even from Levi.

He fulfills the priestly line, not because he's from the tribe of Levi, but because he's a priest like Melchizedek, who's ordained in heaven.

He stands over all the priests.

Levi, Aaron, all of the priests.

He's greater than all of them because he fulfills all of their ministries.

He fulfills the kingly line, the promise from Judah to David.

He is from Judah.

He is in the line of David.

He is that prophesied king.

He fulfills the prophetic line.

The prophets prophesied until John, and John was the last prophet because he was pointing to Christ.

John was the Elijah, he prepares the way.

Jesus fulfills even that.

Prophet, priest, king.

He rides in a donkey because the Old Testament says he'll be in a donkey.

He thirsts in the cross because the Old Testament says he'll thirst in the cross.

He's born in Bethlehem, but raised in Nazareth, out of Egypt, because the Old Testament says all those things will be true.

And you read those prophecies in the Old Testament, you're like, how can he be born in Bethlehem?

How can he be called out of Egypt?

How can he be from Nazareth?

Those the three different places.

How can he be from all of them?

And then you see how he is from all of them.

Why?

To fulfill a prophecy.

Old Testament says he'll be forsaken by God, stricken, smitten, and afflicted, yet buried with a rich person, and yet his soul won't experience Sheol to its full capacity, and he will deliver himself out of Sheol.

How can all of those things be true?

That he will be invincible and yet slain.

How can all of those prophecies be true?

They are all true in him.

I mean, I I could do this all day.

I mean, you could spend hours, hours talking about all the prophecies he fulfills for no other reason than to fulfill the prophecies.

But it's so summed up here in Matthew 5, verse 17.

Matthew 5:17

He didn't come to abolish those prophecies.

He came to fulfill them.

Fulfilling the law doesn't mean erasing it.

It doesn't mean erasing it.

It means using it.

If you have a pitcher on your table, it's empty, it's glass, it's pretty.

What's it there for?

You fill it up with water so that you can serve.

When you fill it up with water, you're not breaking the pitcher.

That's what it's meant for.

Jesus doesn't come to break the law.

He doesn't come to erase the law.

He doesn't come to throw it away, to discard it, to trample on it.

He comes to fulfill it, to use it like it was meant to be used, namely to point to him.

That's one way he fulfills the law, by who he is.

The second way he fulfills the law is by what he does.

By what he does.

He keeps the law perfectly.

So in a sense, he's the finish line of the race.

The race is going towards him.

But in another sense, he's the driver of the car.

As he's going to cross the finish line, he's actually doing all the law says.

So it's not just that he's the perfect priest over Levi from Melchizedek, but it's that all the priestly line, all the commandments, he keeps them all.

It's not just that he's the Passover lamb, but that all the requirements in the Torah, he does them all so that he can be sinless and not deserve death.

He obeys every command.

I loved listening to how J.J.

prayed earlier.

That he knew what to say and what not to say.

He knew what to do and what not to do.

He knew it all.

He did it all.

Perfectly.

You really, the best illustration of this is Matthew chapter 3.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

He goes to be baptized by John the Baptist.

Baptism is a baptism, it's a sign of repentance.

It's a sign of dying to your old way of life, rising in this life.

It's a sign of purification from the Old Testament.

It's a declaration of your own sin and that you need forgiveness.

It's called a baptism of repentance.

John calls it that.

The Pharisees show up, and John tells the Pharisees, Well, who told you to repent?

Then Jesus shows up.

And John says, I can't do that.

He's sinless.

He's the sinless Lamb of God.

So John tells Jesus, you should baptize me.

I shouldn't be baptizing you.

And Jesus, who has no sin, says, No, you have to baptize me in order to fulfill all righteousness.

To fill it all up from the inside.

He's going to keep every part of the law perfectly.

He's going to subject himself to Elijah to elevate Elijah, not because he needs to repent, but because he's doing all that is commanded.

Every single command Jesus completed.

Every task he did.

Even ones that you think, how can he do that?

I mean, there's a command, there's a specificity in the law for what happens if a leper, if a Jewish leper is healed, what sacrifice he's supposed to offer, and how he's supposed to present himself to the priest.

That never happened.

There's ever a leper healed, a Jewish leper healed in the Old Testament.

That never happens.

Then Jesus comes.

How does he fulfill the law?

He's not a leper.

Well, he heals a leper, remember?

Then tells, this is Matthew 8.

This is right after the Sermon on the Mount.

He heals the leper and then says, Go present yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifice that Moses commanded.

He fulfills even that part of the law.

Imagine a look on the priest's face, by the way, when a leper knocks on his door.

Like, hey, used to be a leper.

Healed now.

So I'm supposed to do what the law says.

Do you remember?

I don't.

They get dust off that part of the Torah.

He fulfills it all.

All of it.

Every command, so much so that Hebrews 7 verse 26 can say he was, it's fitting that we should have such a high priest.

Hebrews 7:26

Holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens.

So earlier in Hebrews, it says we're that he's not afraid to call us his brothers and sisters.

Like we're we're with him.

We're in the family with him.

He's not ashamed of us.

And yet he's separated from us because he never sinned.

He did everything the law commanded.

You see this even in his trial.

Isn't that Mark 14, verse 56, I think?

Mark 14:56

The people who are putting him on trial.

The witnesses can't agree on any accusation against him.

They couldn't agree.

They couldn't even come up with a lie that was convincing about his sin.

They found nothing to accuse him of.

This is why the thief on the cross in Luke 23 could say, This is an innocent man.

As for us, we deserve our condemnation.

This man, remember what the thief says, has done nothing wrong.

This man, he declares, was innocent.

Judas recognized that.

Matthew 27, verse 4.

Matthew 27:4

When Judas's conscience is pricked about selling him, Judas takes the money, he goes back.

And remember what he tells the priest when he goes back to them?

He says, I have betrayed innocent blood.

Judas declared he was innocent.

Pilate washes his hands and says, This man's blood is not on my hands.

He's innocent.

His blood be on your hands.

Jesus never sinned.

That's how he could fulfill the law.

He fulfills it by who he is, and he fulfills it by what he does.

What a contrast with us, by the way.

Verse 18, truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not a iota or yoda, not a dot, will passion the law until all is accomplished.

It's the smallest little Hebrew marking.

A dot, the smallest little dot.

It's the difference between an R and a B.

You know, or an R and a P.

Think of all the different letters.

Just one little thing just changes the meaning of everything.

Jesus is every little keystroke in the Old Testament.

That would be the modern version.

Every keystroke.

It's perfect.

It will remain until two things happen to it.

It will remain until heaven and earth pass away.

Speaking of the created order, God's going to destroy the heaven and the earth.

And it will remain until it is accomplished.

So he speaks of heaven and earth fading away, and he speaks of him accomplishing all of it.

Everything that's described in it.

This is a declaration of the inerrancy of God's Word, isn't it?

There's no mistakes in God's Word.

There's no mistakes.

Everything God's Word says is true.

It's perfect.

It stands forever.

And we are so prone to trying to accommodate our own worldviews into God's word into our own worldviews.

And that's where Jesus goes next in verse 19.

Whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

I mean, that's what people do.

They fail God's law because they try to lower it.

So the next part of this little instruction here, Jesus talks about how we fail to keep the law.

He's given you two ways he does keep it by who he is and what he does.

Now he's going to give two ways we fail to keep it.

And the first way, the most obvious way we fail to keep it, is by lowering it.

By saying that that doesn't apply to me.

That's not what that meant.

The Bible says this, but I think it actually meant this other thing over here that happens to correspond with my own worldview.

How neat is that?

I have my own way I want to live.

The Bible doesn't seem to correspond to it, but when you change this one word, it doesn't actually mean that.

Then suddenly my whole worldview is validated.

Yes.

That's lowering God's word, lessening it.

The SV in verse 19 translates it relaxes.

That's the Greek word luo, and I don't usually share Greek words with you, but I'm sharing the word luo with you because it is the first Greek word that Greek students learn, usually.

It's the first Greek verb they learn.

It's the paradigmatic verb.

All the other verbs, it's the regular verb.

And so Greek students learn that word.

Very common word for Greek students to learn.

It means to loose.

It's the word for like a horse who's tied to a pole.

You take his tether off and shoe him away.

He runs away.

That's loosing him.

Your dog is on a leash and you unclick the leash, that's loosing it.

He can now, he's free to run wherever he wants.

That's this word.

So that's what people do to the law.

They change a jot, they change a tittle, they change a letter here or a word there.

They say that word doesn't actually mean sexually immoral.

That word means something else that only the Romans could do.

Fortunately, there's no Romans around.

It doesn't mean day, it means eon.

I just changed one word and that lets my whole world view slide on in there.

Doesn't mean this, it means that.

It's lower, the constant lowering of God's commands to justify your own sin, to justify the way you want to live.

But when you lower the word, it's the same thing as letting it free.

It's always done to excuse your own sin, too.

So you say this commandment doesn't apply to me.

I've untied it, swatted it, galloped away, never to be seen again.

So Jesus says, if you do that, you are the least in the kingdom of heaven.

I'm not entirely sure what that phrase means, but I know it's not good.

But whoever does the word of God and teaches others to do it will be great in the kingdom of heaven.

There's a contrast here from those that lower the word to those that understand it and explain it.

And Jesus says, don't lessen the word.

And people always try to lessen the word.

They try to get rid of it.

It's amazing that the word of God is still here.

I mean, the world has gone to war against it, hasn't it?

For thousands of years, the world has attacked this book more than any other book.

They've burned them.

The Bible's been burned more than any other book, banned it, banished it, yet it's still here.

People mock it and manipulate it, and yet it's still here.

I read in a commentary this week a quote from Voltaire, who said, in a hundred years, the only Bibles left in the world will be in museums.

He said that more than a hundred years ago, by the way.

Welcome to Emanuel Bible Museum.

People deny it and despise it, and yet it's still here.

Nothing, no attack has prevailed against it.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever.

Heaven and earth may pass away.

But the words of Christ will stand.

In fact, I just want you to notice the contrast.

In verse 18, Jesus says, this word will stand until the Old Testament will stand until heaven and earth pass away.

At the end of Matthew's gospel, after Jesus is done teaching in the Passion Week, one of the last things he tells his disciples is that my words will stand after heaven and earth pass away.

He brings it all the way to eternity.

The way Christ fulfills all of this lasts forever.

The heaven can be destroyed, the earth can be destroyed, heaven there just being the sky.

But Christ's words will endure forever.

That means if you find your righteousness in Christ, it's a righteousness that lasts forever.

And if you stand guilty before Christ, it's a guilt that lasts forever because his word is not going anywhere.

So you try to lower it, it won't work.

It will condemn you.

The second way people fail the law is by trying to raise it.

And this is where he goes in verse 20.

I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Exceeds the scribes and the Pharisees.

The scribes and the Pharisees were the religious leaders, they were the guardians of the truth.

If you're to look around and say, who's the most righteous person in the room?

Everybody points at those guys.

I don't think Jesus is speaking, is being condescending to them, although he's clearly saying they're outside of the kingdom.

Because he says you've got to be better than them to make it in.

That means they're out.

But what he's doing is he's pointing around and he's saying, the most righteous people here, you have to do better than them if you want to get in by your works.

You want to work your way to heaven?

If you think righteousness is the punch card that will get you into heaven, you have to exceed their righteousness.

You have to do better than them, and they're the best.

This is just the basic concept of salvation by works.

That God offers people eternal life if they keep his word perfectly.

That's an offer.

It's on the table.

It doesn't expire.

You keep God's word perfectly, you can go to heaven.

You're a good enough person, you can get to heaven.

Love your neighbors yourself, you can get there that way.

You can do it.

Except that you can't.

This is the very opening story in the scripture, isn't it?

Here's the tree of life.

Eat it and you'll live forever.

Here's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Don't eat that, or you die.

But they got one command.

And they break it.

This is our story.

This is how the law functions, by the way.

The law is designed to show you what a sinner you are.

It's designed to provoke sin in you.

It's designed to make you realize that you're a sinner.

And this is what Paul says.

It's not that the law is a sinner.

The law doesn't create sin in you.

Your heart creates a sin.

The law just shows you which direction.

You want to sin against God, just go that way.

After first service, one of our elders told me about an apartment building he lived in in Florida next to a canal, and the building was brand new.

And so before people moved in, they thought, you know, right, there's the canal.

We don't want people fishing off the railings into the canal because the weight of the line will break the windows below it.

So they put up signs on every balcony that said, no fishing off the balcony.

Guess what everybody did?

Fish off the balcony.

So after a few months of this, they took down all the signs.

And guess what?

People stop fishing.

It didn't occur to them anymore.

That's the way the law works in your life.

That doesn't mean the sign was wrong.

It means your heart is wicked.

So if you want to get eternal life by keeping the law, good luck.

You have to do it better than the Pharisees, better than the scribes.

The problem is the more you study it, the more you break it.

You wouldn't have even known what coveting was unless the law told you.

Now you can't stop doing it.

Do you think you can be a good enough person to earn salvation?

That's what Jesus tells them.

It cannot be done that way.

This is why this connects to the Beatitudes.

The Beatitudes were such a powerful introduction to this sermon.

Because it starts with you recognizing you're spiritually bankrupt.

You don't have what it takes to get to heaven.

And then you hunger and thirst for righteousness outside of yourself.

Now, what Jesus is answering here is where does that righteousness come from?

I mean, that's kind of the question that's left hanging in Matthew 5, with if you desire righteousness outside of yourself, you've got to look somewhere else to get it.

Well, where do you look?

Who can give you the righteousness that you need?

Who has righteousness that they can share with you so that you can go to heaven, not based upon your own works, but based upon the works of somebody else?

The answer, what Jesus says back in verse 17, is that he fulfills the law.

All the righteousness we need comes from him.

Salvation does not come through law-keeping, but it comes through substitution.

So if you want to be saved, you cannot keep the law well enough to earn it.

You need somebody else to do that in your place.

And that's what Jesus does.

Every time he kept the law, which was all the time.

He's demonstrating his righteousness.

He's accumulating the righteousness of his works, and he shares it with us by imputation.

He gives his works to us.

He declares to us that we are righteous because he fulfilled the law in our place.

I titled this message Law in 3D because this is what Jesus, the Old Testament, it's on the page.

Jesus brings it to life.

He walks off the pages of the Old Testament to stand in front of the synagogue and say, Today this is fulfilled in your hearing.

He says, I am the one that the law and prophets prophesied of.

He tells the Pharisees that Abraham looked forward to his day and saw it.

He's talking about fulfilling all of the law, being all of our righteousness, bringing our the commands of the Old Testament to life, and then bringing us with him into that.

The only way to be righteous is to find your righteousness in Christ.

And that doesn't mean that you then sin and say, if my righteousness comes from Christ, then let me sin so the grace might abound.

No, because if you relax one of the commands, you're least in the kingdom of heaven.

So rather you cling to the righteousness of Christ.

The law shows you your sin, Jesus shows you righteousness and brings you along with him.

Taking my kids to New York next week.

And we're gonna ride the subway.

And I've received lots of advice from New Yorkers about how to do that.

The easiest way now is that each kid has their own credit card.

And they tap on and tap off, don't lose the credit card.

Now those kids don't have any money.

My kids.

Those credit cards have my name on it, by the way.

Whatever they spend with those, I'm paying for.

But my littlest, she's too little.

She doesn't need to tap on and tap off.

She can ride for free.

So how's that supposed to happen, though?

So I ask, ask my New York City dwelling friends, how do you bring the little one on?

And they say, well, you bring it through the turnstile with you, so you tap on, they hold on to you, and you bring them through.

Alright.

Pastor gets arrested for turnstile jumping.

I'll say, no, it was her.

I don't even know her.

Who is that person?

This is how we get into heaven.

It's not a righteousness of our of our own.

But we hold on to the Lord.

We hold on to him.

And he brings us through with his own righteousness.

We stand before God with an eternal righteousness that comes from his kindness, his obedience.

Our only hope is a righteousness that comes from outside of ourselves.

From Jesus, who kept the law perfectly.

God, we're grateful that you share your righteousness with us.

Manifest in the flesh through Jesus Christ.

Proclaimed among the world, believed on, here and celebrated in glory.

We're thankful for our Lord and his righteousness that he gives to us.

I think in my mind how so many of the Jewish customs even today point to you, the glass of wine at the table for Elijah, the seat reserved in case you show up.

Lord, we know you did walk through the door.

You did sit down, you took your seat in the Sanhedrin.

You did take the cup.

The wrath the Father poured out into the cup.

You drank it yourself.

The party came and went.

You took your seat, you drank the wrath.

You went to the grave, you rose.

So Lord, if there's only any hope for eternal life, it's not from looking for another who will come.

It's not from setting aside a glass for somebody else or a seat for somebody else.

You came, you occupied the seat, you drank the wrath.

You alone can give us salvation.

So I pray for every heart here, Lord, in this room.

I pray that you would soften our hearts towards you.

Help us rely on your righteousness.

Not the righteousness of another who is to come, but the righteousness of the one who came and fulfilled the law.

We give you thanks for this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.