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Matthew 5. 01/22/2017.
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Life occasionally throws wake-up
calls at us. We've all had them.
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We go about our ordinary daily
routine when suddenly something happens and we are confronted with a shocking reality.
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I had one such wake-up call several
years ago.
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My energy was low, my clothes were
ill fitting, my appetite had increased, but I wasn't really paying attention.
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What got my attention, however, was
that I was suddenly close to 30 pounds overweight and my doctor told me if my
cholesterol was any higher he'd be prescribing medication.
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I had a wake-up call which required
me to make a decision.
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Either I could continue to live the
way I had been or I could take steps to adopt a healthier lifestyle through
proper diet and exercise.
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The Sermon on the Mount is a wake-up
call from the heart of Jesus for his disciples and the crowds.
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The common people were under the
constant spiritual pressure of knowing that they did not measure up to the
requirements of the law as the Scribes and Pharisees understood it.
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They lived under a tremendous
weight, a burden of carrying rigid rules and regulations which God did not
give.
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For example, 39 different kinds of
work were strictly forbidden on the Sabbath by the Talmud (an ancient Jewish
commentary on the law) and the Pharisees rigidly misapplied these rules.
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As we saw last week, the disciples
were breaking the Sabbath according to the Pharisees because they merely
plucked some heads of grain and rubbed them in their hands so they could eat
the kernels.
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Jesus was breaking the Sabbath
because he told a man to stretch out his hand and it was healthy and whole.
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Such was their legalistic, lock
step, wooden interpretation of Scripture, which had no room for an ounce of
human compassion.
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Jesus saw the way the Pharisees applied
the law to people and saw that it was void of compassion.
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He saw that the Pharisees did not
really help people to live good and righteous lives.
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The Pharisees were all about their
own self-righteousness and about rigidly keeping their understanding of the
law, but Jesus concerned himself with demonstrating the love, mercy, and
compassion of God for people.
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Jesus, seeing the crowds went, up a
hillside, his disciples following him, and he began to deliver his wake-up
call.
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The good life of God's heavenly
kingdom is available for spiritual nobody's.
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If you think you're a failure, the
good life is available in God's kingdom now.
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The good life of God's comfort is
available for the sorrowful and depressed.
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The good life is available for the
timid, the shy, the intimidated, because the earth belongs to the Lord, it also
belongs to them.
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The good life is available for those
who suffer injustice and long to see justice done because God's kingdom can
transform, renovate, and satisfy.
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The good life is available for the
compassionate for although they are frequently taken advantage of, God will
have compassion on them.
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The good life is available for the
perfectionists, the know-it-alls, those for whom things are never good enough,
for they will finally see God who is always more than good enough.
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The good life is available for those
always caught in the middle making peace. For their peacemaking efforts, they
will be called God's children because he is always working for peace.
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The good life is available for
informants and whistleblowers that stand up for truth. Although they face danger now, they will know
the eternal security of God's unshakable Kingdom.
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The good life is available for the
despised, the slandered, and the mistreated in Jesus. Their character is known by God and he will
give them heaven's great reward.
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The poor in spirit have done nothing
to deserve the blessed life.
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It is only because God has drawn
near in the person of Jesus that they can suddenly be blessed.
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The good life coming to the nobodies
of the world is an act of God's grace through Jesus Christ.
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It is these people who are the salt
of the earth and the light of the world.
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These lowly people, God enables them
to cleanse, preserve, and flavor, salting the world around them.
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These nobodies, God empowers by his
truth, love, and power, giving light to the world around them.
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These overlooked, ignored little
people are actually the ones God can use as world changers.
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Jesus wanted his disciples to live
lives that were truly good by God's standards and Scripture tells us that the
Lord looks on the heart.
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Jesus told his disciples that he was
not just looking for people to follow the mere letter of the law but the whole
of it.
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That's what he meant when he said
that and not an iota not a dot will pass from the law until all is
accomplished.
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The Pharisees built their lives
around keeping the letter of the law.
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They were all about having the appearance
of goodness, but most of them were not really good.
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As Jesus said of them, "Woe to
you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup
and the plates, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence! You
blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and plate, that the outside
also may be clean" (Mark 23:25-26, ESV).
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As Jesus said in his great sermon,
"I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and
Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:20,
ESV).
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That is the wake-up call which was
on Jesus' heart.
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This statement about having
righteousness greater than the scribes and Pharisees would have shocked Jesus'
listeners.
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It would have shocked them because
in those days the Pharisees and scribes were considered to be the greatest
examples of righteousness.
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If the righteousness of the scribes
and the Pharisees was not enough to enter heaven, then surely no one could
enter heaven.
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The problem, according to Jesus, is
that no amount of religious rule keeping is enough to get anyone into heaven.
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Rule keeping is not enough because
the problem is not in breaking the rules; the problem is with our souls.
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Really, human beings are, heart,
soul, and mind, corrupt.
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Jesus spends most of the rest of the
sermon with example after example of how religious rule keeping is not enough
and that it is the heart which needs transformation.
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To
be salt and light, I need a changed heart.
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Jesus told his listeners that they
needed hearts with righteousness greater than the scribes and Pharisees.
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They needed to be concerned not with
outward appearances, not with show, but first with what's on the inside because
what's inside shows up on the outside.
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Jesus said: it is not enough to
resist murder; the real issue is unresolved anger.
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Anger needs to be dealt with through
reconciliation.
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Jesus said: it's not enough to avoid
adultery; the real problem is a lustful heart.
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The lust that's the source of
adultery must be dealt with.
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Jesus said: it is not enough when marital
relationships fail to choose the easy route of divorce unless there has been
infidelity because divorce leads to adultery.
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According to Jesus, failed marriages
are not God's first and best choice for us.
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The tendency of the human heart is
to look for a way out when the going gets tough.
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Jesus said: it's not enough to keep
sworn oaths. In fact, it's better not to swear at all. Simply let your yes be
yes and your no be no.
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The Pharisees were masters of
technicalities. According to them, an oath sworn by heaven was more binding
than an oath sworn by anything on earth.
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At issue is the dishonest heart and
the tendency to manipulate what is said to get out of keeping promises.
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The problem of deceit in the human
heart needs to be addressed.
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Jesus said: it's not enough to
inflict punishment on the guilty, rather showing mercy and grace to the guilty
is a real kingdom value, going above and beyond demonstrates the heart of God.
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Jesus reveals that the desire for
retaliation and revenge comes from the sinful heart.
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Mercy and grace are beyond the capacity
of the sinful heart to grasp.
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Jesus said: it's not enough to love
your neighbor and hate your enemy. You've got to love your enemies and pray for
those who persecute you.
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This reveals the sin of the natural
human heart. It's not possible to love everyone and hate no one.
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To fix the broken sinful heart, hate
must be uprooted and replaced with love.
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To
be salt and light, I need a changed heart.
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Jesus said: Your example is God your
Father. Be mature, complete, and perfect
as he is.
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God is the only one who has
righteousness greater than the scribes and pharisees.
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Jesus said that God's kingdom is
available to spiritual nobodies.
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All of us are spiritual nobodies who
have no righteousness, not full maturity or perfection of our own because our
hearts are full of sin.
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To have righteousness greater than
the scribes and Pharisees, we need God's righteousness.
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That goodness only comes from a
heart that is in continual relationship with Jesus.
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A heart in continual relationship
with Jesus is changed and can be salt and light in the world.
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That's a wake-up call we all need.
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To
be salt and light, I need a changed heart.
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