A Liveable Sermon: How Jesus Lived the Good News

Jesus Fulfills the Law & the Prophets

Matthew 5:17-20 ““Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all things are accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.”

Principle: There is always more to God’s plan than what we can see and what we can understand.

Is55.8-9 ““For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.” This is the Lord’s declaration. “For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Ps139.13-14 “For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well.”

We are more than often impatient, presumptuous, controlling, and unaware that God is in fact at work restoring those things that are broken…making all things new.

We are more comfortable with a religion we can control than we are with the dynamics of a living relationship with God.

Persian Rug tapestry on the backside looks like chaos…random threads and random colors back and forth with no real pattern…but on the front the artist was weaving an exquisite picture.

That’s what the Sermon on the Mount is about:

Jesus is telling us that God has been in the world from the beginning and he’s inviting us to open our eyes and join him in his work.

Sermon on the Mount

Matthew has collected the essentials of Jesus life and message.

Notice it’s not really a sermon about being saved…it’s a sermon on how to live out your salvation. (Jesus came preaching the Kingdom.)

SLIDE: The Sermon on the Mount is not a sermon about being saved. It’s a sermon on how to live out your salvation.

The Law & The Prophets

In the coming weeks we are going to look at each of the Beatitudes...

But first, we are starting with vv.17-20 because this is the key to understanding all of the Sermon on the Mount.

What does Jesus Say:

Matthew 5:17-18 ““Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all things are accomplished.”

The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)

Broken into three sections:

The Law (Pentateuch) - The story of God’s Love for his people.

The Prophets (Jeremiah, Isaiah, etc.) - God’s message of truth & justice.

The Writings (Proverbs, Psalms, etc.) - The prayers of God’s people.

Two Common Mistakes (mentalities):

The OT doesn’t apply to the church today unless explicitly reaffirmed in the NT (hyper grace)

All the laws of the OT apply unless explicitly revoked in the NT (legalism/fundamentalism)

Why is this a problem?

Because it attempts to read God’s message (God’s story; Scripture) as a list of rules to follow instead of a person to follow.

Does God have a standard?

YES! His name is Jesus! He is who we were born to be…same spiritual family...same spiritual bloodline!

Matthew 5:20 “For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.”

What is Jesus saying???

The Pharisees, sadducees, and scribes were the elite religious. They followed all the so called rules down to a “t”...

But Jesus says all those with perfect religious standing and perfect morals, but an un-surrendered heart will be the FIRST ones left out of the Kingdom.

Jesus is the meaning of all that God has said and all that God has done.

That’s why the Sermon on the Mount is so important for the church. Jesus is not giving us a high moral standard to live by…he’s inviting us to get in on his life by living in harmony with the Kingdom of God.

One of the most interesting thing about the Bible is Christians generally take for granted how we got to these nice bound copies with chapters and verses…like most ancient books they started with the originals (autographs) and then a scribe would make a copy by hand letter by letter (manuscripts)…you can imagine how meticulous that would be especially for the longer books…often times a scribe would have sloppy handwriting or not form a letter perfectly and later scholars would have to determine the most likely interpretation of what the scribe was trying to write..

On this hillside Jesus is saying, all the dots on all the “i’s” and all the crosses on all the “t’s” are fulfilled in me!

John 11:25 “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.”

Resurrection is not something Jesus did, like an event in history....

Resurrection is who Jesus is, as in the real presence of the living Christ!!

Three Kinds of People in the Kingdom

(*Note: We have all likely been one of the three at some point.)

The Greatest - Those who hear and follow the ways of Jesus and therefore see God.

The Least - Those who ignore the ways of Jesus and miss God’s hand in their lives.

The Out - Those who imagine their performance is enough and never get to see God.