Matthew 5:17-20

Chapter Matthew, verse 17 through 20 will be our text.

Our Lord, the very Son of God, God incarnate speaking, he says, do not think that I came

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 or one tittle will

by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

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 them and teaches them, he should be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

This is a very sobering verse, verse 20.

For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and

the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Let's pray and ask for God's help.

Lord we read in the book of Isaiah that the man you will regard is the man who trembles

at your word.

Father would you produce a deep trembling in us as the holy, sacred word of God is opened.

Father we beg of you Lord for the spirit's presence, your help, your unction, your power

Lord.

May there be humility and a boldness.

Lord may a recognition of our own unworthiness and a lifting up to see the worthiness of

our Lord.

God help us this morning Lord.

Please Lord I beg you speak to your people, feed them with the bread from on heaven and

we pray this in Jesus name.

Amen.

Now it's been a few weeks since we've been in Matthew, last week homecoming and the week

before we looked at just the sovereignty of God.

So today we're going to continue in the Sermon on the Mount and we must remember there's

a central premise of Matthew's gospel and what he really is speaking about, there's

a revelation of the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God.

Now Matthew is a Jewish man, a Jewish disciple, primarily writing to a Jewish audience and

he's doing so to prove that the Lord Jesus is the long awaited King of Israel.

Matthew wants his entire Jewish readers to know that Jesus is the Christ that had been

promised from God.

Now if we go a little bit deeper because Matthew is a Jew writing to a Jewish audience, there's

a lot, there are a lot of Old Testament allusions.

The nation of Israel in the Old Testament was called the Son of God.

You hear over and over again God's Son speaking of the nation of Israel.

Yet when we come to Matthew's gospel, he said this child born to the Virgin Mary is the

true son of God.

In fact, he is the true Israel who will keep and inherit all the covenant promises that

God had made to the nation.

In Matthew's gospel, what you see is a recapitulation of the life of the nation of Israel.

Now let me explain.

Just as the nation of Israel had an exodus out of Egypt, so also the Lord Jesus had an

exodus out of Egypt.

And we read that in Matthew chapter 2, verse 15.

Matthew 2:15

He said, he, that is Jesus was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled

which is spoken by the Lord through the prophet saying out of Egypt I called my son.

Now that was spoken to the nation of Israel and Matthew says no, no, no.

It was pointing to the true Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ.

But just as Israel passed through the baptismal waters of the Red Sea, so Christ passed through

the baptismal waters of the Jordan River.

That's Matthew 3.

And immediately when Israel passes through the Red Sea, what happened?

They go into the desert to be tested for 40 years.

Well Matthew 3, Jesus is baptized.

What happens in Matthew 4?

Immediately following his baptism.

He comes out of the waters of the Jordan and he is immediately led by the Holy Spirit into

the desert to be tempted for how long?

40 days.

The nation of Israel failed in their wilderness testing, yet Jesus, the true Israel, the true

Son succeeded in his.

The nation of Israel failed through unbelief.

Thus they broke their covenantal relationship.

But Christ, the true Son, succeeded how?

By completely obeying and completely trusting his father, thus securing all the covenantal

blessings.

Israel was made up of 12 tribes.

12 tribes with 12 sons of Jacob.

In Matthew 10, we're not there, but we will eventually see the Lord will choose 12 disciples.

Just as Israel had 12 tribes, Christ would have 12 apostles.

Why?

Because there's a foundation change.

No longer are the people of God built upon the 12 nations of the tribe of Israel, but

now the 12 apostles would serve as the foundation for the people of God with Jesus Christ himself

being the chief cornerstone.

Now we're in chapter 5.

We see the King, Jesus, and he's preaching on the nature of his kingdom.

The first 12 verses we looked at in depth one by one.

We saw the Beatitudes, and those are just the character.

It defines the character of those who are in the kingdom.

This is not how you get into the kingdom, but this is the character of those who are

in the kingdom.

And then we are told kind of our marching orders.

What do those in the kingdom do?

There to be salt and light.

Light your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your

Father who is in heaven.

But now we start a new section beginning in verse 17 through chapter 7 at the end in the

entire sermon.

We're going to see how this kingdom operates.

And again, primarily if you say, what's the theme of it?

Righteousness.

This sermon that Jesus, the master preacher, is going to unfold what true righteousness

looks like in the kingdom of God.

But as we get into the heart of the sermon, we have to understand something.

Put yourself there on that day.

You're on the hillside and there in Israel.

You're listening to Jesus, and he would have been an enigma, a mystery to those listening

to him that day.

He comes out of obscurity.

He comes out of, and let's use the word, podunk Nazareth is where he's from.

He's not a Pharisee.

He's not a scribe.

He's not a member of the religious elite, and he's less so a member of the Sanhedrin,

which was an esteemed body there in Israel.

You have a poor man from a poor family who grew up in an obscure, poor village.

Jesus had no formal training.

He did not sit at the feet of any esteemed rabbi.

He did not attend any rabbinical school.

And yet he comes on the scene and he's challenging everything that the religious leaders are

now teaching.

Well, that's curious to them because the religious leaders, the scribes and Pharisees at that

day were held in high regard.

What they taught was considered binding.

It was authoritative.

And yet this Lord, the Lord Jesus coming out of nowhere, he begins to criticize their teaching.

And at times he publicly rebukes those men.

So the people there, they're wondering, who is this man?

And from where did he get his authority?

I mean, he's speaking as though his own word is as authoritative as the law of Moses.

Is he claiming to be greater than Moses?

So he's definitely a mystery, but he's also scandalous.

Jesus in his ministry, he keeps company with notorious sinners.

The Pharisees would have never done anything like that.

And our Lord on various occasions went out of his way to break or challenge the Pharisee's

teaching.

He looked for ways to do it.

So there arose a question, a natural one.

Had Jesus come to break the law?

Had he come to break the prophets?

So what was his response?

That's our text.

Look again, verse 17.

Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets.

I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.

Now today there is a tendency in some churches to classify the scribes and Pharisees as mere

legalists.

And then they paint Jesus, he comes along with grace and he has no law at all.

So you have the law and you have grace and that could not be further from the truth.

If you think the scribes and Pharisees were tough and held to the law, wait till you read

the rest of the sermon and see how Jesus raises the bar every single time.

Our Lord did not simply emphasize external obedience.

Rather, he goes deeper.

He said if you're going to please God and if you're really going to keep the law, the

motivation of your heart behind your actions is what really matters.

It's not enough that you just don't commit adultery.

There can't even be lust in your heart.

He's not relaxing the law of God even a little bit.

Instead of, he's upholding it and he's showing the true intention that had always lain behind

it.

He says do not think.

And what he's saying there is don't even begin to think.

Don't think for one second.

Don't even let that enter in your mind that I have somehow come to destroy the law or

the prophets.

And by the way, that's just a way of referring to the entire Old Testament.

Now here at the beginning of his ministry, he's wanting to clear up any confusion that

might exist.

He's not in opposition to God's law, but he did oppose the Pharisees and scribes interpretation

of it.

One of the charges that the religious leaders will level against him was that he was a law

breaker.

They said he's breaking God's law.

Now that's a lie.

He had never done so, but he had broken their law.

He had broken their interpretation of the law.

But how do you do that?

Because these religious leaders had sought to domesticate the law.

They wanted to water it down so they could be proud of keeping it.

So they developed many sophisticated loopholes to get out from under the heavy demands of

the law that was thundering forth.

I mean, the law was just an absolute thundering lion there.

And yet they had taken these heavy demands and they morphed into something they could

now obey.

Our Lord looked at this and he said, you're hypocrites.

He rightly saw that this hypocrisy, and he wasn't content to do that privately, he publicly

called them out for it.

And these men were not used to or accustomed to their authority being challenged.

So from the very beginning, this is the beginning of our Lord's ministry, three years later

he'll die.

There was a rift forming between the religious elite and this peasant prophet from Nazareth.

And Christ said, but let me just tell you the truth.

I've not come to abolish the law, but I will fulfill it.

How?

Because he will be the one to render absolute and perfect obedience to it.

Look at verse 18.

For assuredly, I say to you, that's a signal that what comes next is of the very most importance.

Assuredly, listen up what I'm telling you.

Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot, one tittle will by no means pass from the

law till all is fulfilled.

As long as you see heaven and earth still standing, not a jot, not a tittle.

A jot was the smallest letter.

A tittle was the smallest marking of the smallest letter.

Should you see what he's saying?

The smallest marking of the smallest letter, every minute detail of what God has said in

that law will be fulfilled in me.

It's not just rendering absolute obedience.

All the prophecies that were given in the prophets, speaking of the Messiah, are fulfilled

in him.

The entire Old Testament is like a big arrow pointing to Christ.

Now let me give you a caveat here.

This has nothing to do with the main point of the message, but it's worth listening

to.

Since all of the Old Testament is fulfilled in Christ, and it is, that's what he said,

then we have warrant to interpret the Old Testament in light of Christ.

That means, I'm going to give a big term, and I don't care if you know about it at

all, but I want to explain it for a moment.

We have what was called a Christological hermeneutic.

What that means is when you read the Old Testament, you should read it through the lens of Christ

because it points to him.

You don't read it in light of the nation of Israel.

You read it in light of Christ who is the true Israel.

Now why am I saying that?

Because the Bible tells us to do that.

In Luke 24, the words of Jesus speaking, verse 27, he said, beginning Moses and all the prophets,

he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

What is Jesus saying there?

Speaking to those two disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24.

Christ is the culmination and the eschatological fulfillment of the entire Old Testament.

Everything is summed up in him.

He is the one sent from heaven.

Because of that, he has the authority to properly interpret it.

He's not bringing a new teaching.

He's rather showing how the law of God was meant to be obeyed.

This means we should never try to separate or divorce the New Testament from the Old

Testament.

You can't do it, and you shouldn't do it.

R.C.

Sproul said this.

Jared, I don't know where we are in the slides.

I may have lost you.

I'm sorry, buddy.

The Old Testament is the autobiography of God.

It is God's revelation of who he is, what he plans, and what he commands from his people.

We learn from the Old Testament what pleases God.

That is why we must never throw away the Old Testament as if it were of no importance today.

And you'll see there on the slides.

We cannot, and I say this dogmatically, you cannot properly understand the New Testament

apart from understanding the Old Testament.

It is an impossibility.

For example, you will not understand the work of the cross if you don't understand the Old

Testament.

You can't do it.

Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote extensively about this, and I know this is a long quote.

Bear with me.

The purpose of the cross is not to arouse pity in us, neither is it merely some general

display of the love of God.

Not at all.

It is finally understood only in terms of the law.

What was happening on upon that cross was that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the

Son of God, was enduring in his own holy body the penalty prescribed by the holy law of

God for the sin of man.

The law condemns sin, and the condemnation that it produces is death.

The wages of sin is death.

The law pronounces that death must pass upon all who have sinned against God and broken

his holy laws.

Christ then says, do not think that I come to destroy the law or the prophets.

I'm not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

Listen.

One of the ways in which the law has to be fulfilled is that its punishment of sin must

be carried out.

This punishment is death, and that was why he died.

The law had to be fulfilled.

Christ fulfilled the penalty for us as law breakers, but he was also the fulfillment

of all the types and the shadows and the imagery.

He is the perfect sacrifice.

He is the true lamb of God that really does take away the sin of the world.

He's the true temple.

We read that in John chapter 2.

John 2 · chapter mention

The true temple, the temple is the place where God meets with man.

Where is that?

It's Christ.

He's the great high priest who mediates the merits not of some other sacrifice, but the

sacrifice of himself.

Christ is the true and greater Adam.

He's called the second man or the last Adam who successfully represents his people.

The last Adam, Christ, he did not fail as Adam did when tempted, but he overcame the

temptation.

All the types, all the shadows, all the imagery, it was previews of the Lord Jesus Christ who

would come and fulfill every one of them down to the very tittle.

The law was not destroyed with the coming of Christ.

Look at verse 19.

Jesus said, whoever breaks one of the least of these and teaches men so will be called

least in the kingdom, and whoever does and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom.

One's greatness in the kingdom of God is determined by one's attitude toward the scriptures of

God.

This must be understood today.

Obedience to God is not optional in the kingdom of God.

The Lord Jesus did not come to loosen the demands of the law.

In fact, here's the king, and he's laying down the conditions of his kingdom.

Don Carson, D.A. Carson said, the law pointed forward to Jesus and his teaching, so it is

properly obeyed by conforming to his word.

His teaching toward which the Old Testament pointed must be obeyed.

So let me say it again.

Greatness in the kingdom is determined by your obedience and faithfulness to Christ's

teaching.

Now, again, that's a big statement.

Can you back it up?

Luke chapter 6, beginning at verse 46.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

Why, this is the words of Jesus speaking.

Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do the things which I say?

He's not Lord if you're disobeying.

Whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them, I will show you what he's like.

He's like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock.

The flood rose, the string beat vehemently against the house and could not shake it,

first found it upon the rock.

But the one who heard and did nothing is like a man who built his house on the earth without

a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently, and immediately it fell, and the

ruin of that house was great.

Jesus said in John 15 verse 10, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love

John 15:10

just as I kept my father's commandments and abide in his love.

You are my friends if, if you do whatever I command you.

So the question's going to arise.

If Christ fulfilled the law, does the Christian have any relationship to it now?

And the answer is yes, we do.

Before Christ came, the law was a weapon, and it would hammer us and bludgeon us, condemn

us.

But because of the work of Christ, the threat, the condemnation law has been removed.

Christ paid it, and the law becomes a source of delight for the believer.

Because of Christ, God's law, which is a revelation of who he is, a revelation of his character,

no longer is over us threatening us, condemning us, therefore we can take delight in it because

it's revealing who God is.

At the time of the Reformation, they said there are three uses of the law.

Number one, the law was given to show that we could never justify ourselves because you

can't render perfect obedience.

Remember every jow, every tittle, you and I fell.

Jesus did not.

So the law was given, right, show us our transgressions, show us our guilt before a holy God.

As Paul said, it's our schoolmaster.

It's going to usher us over to Christ.

But a second reason the law was given was to restrain sin.

Now the law cannot change the human heart, but it can help protect society, it can help

protect the righteous from the wicked, and that it calls for punishment for those who

break it.

This is like his parents saying to him, we lay down a law for our kids, but it doesn't

change our heart.

But it's going to allow for some harmony within our home so that they're not running wild.

Third though, a third use of the law, and this is where we as believers live, is to

show us what pleases God.

On the Ligonier website, there was no human author here given, it just said, so I put

Ligonier website.

I don't know who wrote it.

By studying or meditating on the law of God, we attend the school of righteousness.

We learn what pleases God and we learn what offends him.

The moral law that God reveals in scriptures is always binding upon us.

Our redemption is from the curse of God's law, not from our duty to obey it.

We are justified, now listen, this is a great quote, we are justified not because of our

obedience to the law, but in order that we may become obedient to the law.

Do you see it?

To love Christ is to keep his commandments, to love God is to obey his law.

Friends, we don't hear this.

The law, it can't justify you.

No, but just because we're under grace does not mean that we are without law to God.

The moral law, it's never been erased, it's never been abrogated, and it never will be.

Why?

Because God would have to change his character because it's based on his character and God

cannot change, he is immutable.

So what you say, well there's some parts of law, yes, the civil law, the ceremonial

aspects of law, they were fulfilled in Christ, they are no longer binding, that means you

and I don't go to a temple and offer animal sacrifices, it's no longer sin for the people

of God to eat pork, no longer is there a requirement to go to Jerusalem to keep the feast days,

those are ceremonial and civil aspects.

But the moral law of God, absolutely it's binding.

In fact the Lord Jesus spoke of the moral law when he was asked, teacher, what is the

greatest commandment?

Do you remember what he said?

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your

mind.

That's the first and great commandment.

And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbors yourself, and then notice what

he said, on these two commandments alone, he reduced 10 to 2, on these two commandments

hang all the law and all the prophets.

The ten commandments hang on two commandments.

You love God and you love others.

What's he mean by that?

If you love God you will have no other gods before him.

If you love God you're not going to take his name in vain.

If you love God you're not going to make idols.

If you love God you will honor his Sabbath day of rest and worship.

If you love others as yourself you will honor your parents.

If you love others you're not going to murder them.

You will not commit adultery against them.

You will not steal from them.

You will not lie about them and you will be happy for them and their success if you love

them.

But there are so many today that say, yeah, but the law, that's done away with.

I'm under grace.

The law has no say whatsoever in my life.

It doesn't matter what I do.

Friends, that's an antinomian stance.

It's an abuse of grace.

It's heresy.

The grace of God will lead you to keep and delight in the law of God.

If the grace he received is not making you holy, you are deceiving yourself.

God's grace leads to holiness.

Titus 2, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, we ought

to listen to that, teaching us what does grace teach us?

Denying ungodliness, denying worldly lusts, teaching us that we should live soberly, righteously,

and godly in this present age.

Grace teaches holiness.

Again, I quote Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, we must have this new mind and disposition which

leads us to love the law and desire to keep it, and by his power he enables us to fulfill

the law.

See, grace is not simply a pardon of sin.

Grace also gives us a new nature that delights in what God delights in.

It gives us a new nature to delight in his law.

It causes us, if you look up at verse 6, to hunger and to thirst after righteousness.

The end, the telos of our salvation is conformity to Christ.

Romans 8, 29, for whom he foreknew, he predestined for what?

To be conformed to the image of his son.

You know what pleases God that you and I look like Jesus?

God's grace is working in us to make us more like his beloved son.

It's transformative.

So if you're not being transformed, Houston, we've got a problem.

Look at verse 20, for I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness

of the scribes and Pharisees, listen, this is Jesus not pointing punches here.

You're not in the kingdom, not by any means.

Now those listening to Jesus, they would have been shocked.

How could anyone supersede the righteousness of the scribes and especially the Pharisees?

And they were the most righteous people of the day.

They were holy.

They excelled in holiness.

They're fastidious in their approach to the law.

Zealous students of the scripture, they could quote scripture.

They studied it diligently because they said in them they thought they had eternal life.

Jesus said, you're missing it because they testify of me.

So no common man ever thought he could be as good as the scribes or the Pharisees.

I mean if anyone's going to enter that kingdom, it would have been them.

They're so good.

And Jesus, looking at those listening to him, said no, unless your righteousness exceeds

theirs, you're without hope.

You will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

And there's several ways.

And I think we would be wrong if we said, well, it's because we need the imputed righteousness

of Christ.

That's true, but that's not what Jesus is teaching here yet.

There's was a self-righteousness.

It was a hypocritical righteousness.

They did look good.

They really did.

They looked good on the outside, but it was a veneer.

They honored the Lord with their mouths and their hearts were far from him.

In Luke 16, 15, Jesus speaking to them said, you are those who justify yourselves before

men, but God knows your hearts.

For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

They looked holy, but they lacked what was necessary, which was righteousness.

In Matthew 23, Jesus looked at them and he said, you are whitewashed tombs.

You look good on the outside, but inwardly you're just full of dead man's bones.

But these men didn't get it.

Unfortunately, they did not see themselves as spiritually bankrupt or spiritual paupers.

They were busy focusing on the external and the whole time failing to notice they lacked

the internal.

Friends, it's possible to be like that today.

You can come to church and you can certainly look good on the outside.

You can give tithes.

You can give offerings.

You can quote scripture.

You can come to Sunday school and work in a wanna and inwardly be corrupt and the whole

time you're deceiving yourself and other people.

But you're never deceiving God.

Well, how do you know if you're deceiving yourself?

Those who receive grace become, begin to be transformed.

Are you being transformed by grace?

Titus 2, verse 11 and 12.

Titus 2:11

Grace is transforming you when your faith begins to express itself in love.

Paul said the end of the law, the end of it, the telos, the fulfillment, the culmination

is love.

Romans 13.

Oh, no one anything except to love one another.

You owe them that debt of love.

For he who has loved another, will you fulfill the law?

For the commandments, you should not commit adultery, murder, steal, bear false witness,

covet.

If there is any other commandment, they're all summed up in this saying namely, listen,

you don't need a bunch of commandments.

Here it is.

You shall love your neighbors yourself.

Why?

Love does no harm to a neighbor.

Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.

The Pharisees, the scribes, they were self satisfied.

They went through the washings, fast man.

You didn't find anyone who's better at fasting.

Feast days they kept.

Sacrifices they offered.

Alms they gave.

Prayers, they loved to pray, especially in public.

And they held the teaching seat of Moses.

And the whole time, these men who looked so righteous and were absolutely zealously religious

were blind.

Blind to their internal corruption.

These men brought glory to themselves and they failed to bring glory to God.

And Jesus is talking and he's being very serious that day.

See, these were the men who compared themselves to others and they started to feel good about

themselves.

Remember how the Pharisee in that parable, Jesus said, he prayed, I'm not like others.

I fast twice a week.

I give all that I have.

I'm glad that I'm not like this man here.

They failed to ever compare themselves to God and His perfection because had they done

so they would have seen that they had fallen so short and they needed much grace.

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

You got to know you have no righteousness, friend.

These men talked a lot about it and they possessed none of it.

Because the law in which they boasted could never give righteousness.

It shows you what it is, shows you how to live, but it can't offer it to you.

Only Christ can.

See, the end of the law is to cause you to look away from the law and look to Christ.

Saving faith rests entirely upon Jesus Christ and His work on our behalf.

Entirely, rest in Him.

The Bible clearly, clearly, clearly says no one can be saved through works.

For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves.

It is a gift of God, not of works.

Why?

Less any man should boast.

Friends, this morning you are not saved by works, but your faith is shown by works.

You are saved by faith alone, but never by a faith that is alone.

In other words, saving faith does not make obedience unnecessary.

Let me say that again.

Saving faith does not make obedience unnecessary.

Faith is opposed to merit.

You have no merit, but faith is not opposed to works.

In fact, faith produces them.

The scribes, the Pharisees, the religious elite, they had an outward form, but they

had no inner reality.

You cannot say that you are a Christian and remain unchanged by the grace given to us

in Christ.

You can't.

What is on the inside?

The work of God that's being done will work itself out on the outside.

Obedience to the commands of God is not optional for the believer.

You don't get a pick and choose.

I'm going to close here with Kevin DeYoung, don't miss what he's saying here.

This is so good that you can get messed up.

You'll just see.

The stakes could not be higher.

Now listen, he said this, if we are no more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees,

we will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

That's Matthew 520.

If we murder in our hearts, we are liable to the hell fire.

Hell fire, 522.

We'll look at that next week.

If we give ourselves over to lust, we will end up in hell.

Matthew 529.

If we don't do the will of our Father, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 721.

That's the man who built his house on the earth.

Listen, you can't say no obedience.

It's going to be a house that falls.

We must not give up hope of obeying Jesus' commands, lest we give up the hope of heaven.

Too many Christians instinctively set aside the commands of scripture as utterly impossible

to obey in any level.

Once we convince ourselves that failure is the norm, like no one really obeys Jesus,

no one really builds his house on the rock, no one really is pure of heart, no one really

enters the narrow gate, no one really bears good fruit.

He said once we do that, we won't take seriously the many warnings given to us in scripture.

What is the warning?

That people who are unchanged by the gospel prove themselves to never really have been

saved by the gospel.

By contrast, Jesus in the Shrine of the Mount urges us, choose the right way to live, stick

with it.

Now this might sound, but pastor, that sounds an awful lot like we're to righteousness now.

Just as in the Old Testament, you couldn't say, hey, I have faith, and then never go

to the temple and offer sacrifice, but that offering that sacrifice never saved you.

It's by faith.

So today you can't say, hey, I have faith, and it never changes us.

It never is producing holy desires.

It's never causing us to repent of our sin.

That's grace, friends.

And the grace of God that has appeared to all men teaches us, and we must preach this

grace.

It is offered freely and exclusively in Christ.

You look away from yourself and you look to Christ, and all those who do so are saved

by God's grace.

But the grace that is true and real is transformative in your life.

It begins to take root, and it begins to sprout and produces a fruit, not perfectly, but somewhat.

There will be obedience because it is the Holy Spirit of God who is the seal of your

salvation who's been given to you, who's producing this fruit.

We have to understand, let us not deceive ourselves.

Jesus wasn't kidding when he was preaching the sermon.

All those, friends, let me just say it again, all those who look to Christ, you will be

saved.

But those who are truly looking to Christ will be changed.

Let us pray.

Father, thank you for your word.

Lord God, we know that, Lord, it's heavy, but I don't want to water down what Jesus

is preaching.

Lord, at least the righteousness, if it's hypocritical, Lord, if it's only a self-righteousness,

if it's only a veneer, Lord, we will end up in hell ourselves.

God help us, Lord.

We fail in many ways.

That's why we confessed our sin earlier.

Lord, we are a sinful people, deeply sinful, Lord.

And we need, Lord God, your forgiveness and your pardon.

And today we come to the table and we see the broken body of Jesus and we see the shed

blood of Jesus.

And those who are truly regenerate said, there's my hope.

There's my only hope.

It's in his sacrifice.

You have sealed pardon of sin at this table.

We get to drink down your promises.

We get to eat them as we taste the bread and the juice upon our lips.

The covenant promises taste so good.

We get to feast on Christ because the Holy Spirit takes us into the very throne room

of God itself.

Where by faith we see him and we feast and we receive his body and his blood.

And Lord, the assurance of pardon, Lord, what a great and awesome God you are.

God, grow us, Lord.

Grow me, Lord.

I feel the weight of my sin, Lord.

I see how desperately sinful I am.

And God, continue, Lord, to humble me, Lord, and I cry out for your grace and it's given

in Christ freely.

Lord, open blind eyes today.

Lord, maybe some in this size of this church that are deceiving themselves, Lord.

God, help them.

Waken them to the hope that's in Christ and only in him.

And we'll give you the praise and the glory and the honor for it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

We're going to prepare our hearts for the table.

Listen, there is nothing after a sermon.

Are you here?