Power in the Pulpit | Matthew 5:17–20

Introduction: Have you ever heard something that made you question everything you had believed in up until that point. Just in case you haven’t, I looked up some facts to kind of give you an idea of what I’m talking about. Here we go. The first, is that vegetables do not exist. In botany there is no classification of vegetable. Napoleon Bonaparte, who is the greatest conqueror of the last 400-500 years, once got attacked by a swarm of rabbits while on a rabbit hunt. How about this. When you think of Abraham Lincoln, what do you think of? Do you think Hall of Fame Wrestler? You will now, because he is. Before he became a politician, honest Abe was a wrestler who took part in over 300 matches, and only lost one. Apparently he was also a huge smack talker. The man who wrote the Gettysburg Address, one of the most important speeches in American history, was a trash talker. Lastly, Cookie Monster is not Cookie Monster’s real name. His real name is Sid. This challenges things you always thought you knew, right? Well can you imagine how the Jewish people Jesus was talking to at the beginning of his ministry felt. All those who were experts in the law gave all their authority back to the scriptures. Jesus didn’t seem to do that. In fact, some of his greatest statements say, “ I say unto you.” So here was this guy doing these huge signs that showed he was from God, but was talking as if he had authority apart from scripture. Had he come to change everything and disregard the scriptures. As we will see tonight, he did not. We will see that the Old Testament spoke of Jesus and Jesus fulfilled it. So it still has power in our lives. We will see this in regards to God and the OT and the OT and our lives. Please stand as we honor the reading of God’s Word.

Matthew 5:17-18.

Exposition: We read first in the passage Matthew 5:17 ““Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” For a while now Jesus had been teaching as somebody that had authority. And you have to think about how this was probably making people feel. Everybody that was an expert of the law or of the OT, was very clear that they did not come on their own authority. What they were teaching came from the scriptures that came from God. Then came Jesus. And Jesus did not teach like that at all. In fact, some of the most prominent teachings of Jesus start by saying, “I say unto you.” He didn’t tell them to grab a scroll and open it up to somewhere in the Jewish scriptures. He was teaching as if it was from him. And so this left people in very much a, “What should we do?” kind of position. They were largely trying to understand what Jesus was doing. Their biggest concern was that maybe he was trying to say that he was bringing something other than what they had read and been raised on for all these years. And if so, what did that mean the place of the scriptures was. Because they couldn’t just write him off as a crazy person because he was doing miracles and things that pointed to him being from God. But if he was doing away with the scriptures, were they wrong, were they now irrelevant? What was the place of them. So that’s why Jesus tells them that he did not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. So what does it mean to fulfill. What Jesus was saying, was that he did not come to offer something new. He did not come to get rid of the Old Testament, instead he came to fulfill the Old Testament scriptures.

Explanation: To fulfill means to bring to fruition of its complete meaning. Jesus did this with every genre of scripture found in the OT. He fulfilled the by following the Jewish law. We know that Jesus was sinless, so in order for this to be the case, he had to follow the commands of God found in the Old Testament. He did this. But he also fulfilled it because through the law we see how sinful we are. We can never uphold the law and we can never make ourselves righteous. We are sinners and there has to be restitution for sin. We see this fulfilled in what Christ did. Leviticus 5:5 says Leviticus 5:5–6 “when he realizes his guilt in any of these and confesses the sin he has committed, he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation for the sin that he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.” Christ is the lamb that made atonement for sin. He was sinless but paid the price for our sins. He also is the fulfillment of all wisdom texts such as Ecclesiastes or Proverbs because He is God and bring that Wisdom. John refers to him as the Word or logos in the Greek. He also obviously fulfills the prophecies found in the OT. For example the prophet Isaiah wrote hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, Isaiah 53:4–7 “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.” Jesus came and died as Isaiah said he would. And we read in the book of Jeremiah 31:33 says, “Jeremiah 31:33 “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Christ had come to do exactly that. And we know that he would do that indeed.

Verse 18

Exposition: But Jesus makes it clear that he did not come to abolish what we know now as the Old Testament. In fact he says quite the opposite. He says in verse 18 Matthew 5:18 “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” How many of y’all have heard the term, not one iota before, but really have no idea what it means. That is ok. Iota is the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet. When we read Matthew today, we read in English translated from the Greek. Jesus would have spoken in Aramaic. Some early church Fathers have suggested that Matthew originally wrote the book in Hebrew and it was later translated to Greek. Even if he originally wrote it in Greek. Jesus would have spoken in Aramaic, which relied heavily on ancient Hebrew. In Hebrew, yod is the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. It’s basically a comma. Jesus is saying that the Old Testament retains its authority, all the way to the smallest mark.

Application: Now, obviously the law does not mean the same thing to us any more. As we see in the book of Acts, there is no sense of clean and unclean anymore. God told Peter he could eat meat, and as a result, we had meat lovers pizza tonight, amen. But there are things that certainly continue. The ten commandments, love of God and love of neighbor, those obviously still apply. in Genesis 3, after the fall of man, God gives the first prophecy of Christ. Amongst all the punishment and consequences of sin we see in Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”” You see in the very beginning, we read that God would send somebody to make the world back to the way it was suppose to be. We see that the world will be restored back to what it was at Eden. So we know that that those scriptures will not lose their meaning, as long as Christ has not returned and built his Kingdom here on earth.

Transition: So we see that in terms of Jesus, all of scripture including the OT points to or is fulfilled in Jesus. But what impact does that have on our lives? How are we impacted by the commands in the OT, Jesus answers that questions for us.

Matthew 5:19-20.

Exposition: Verse 19 says Matthew 5:19 “Therefore 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, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” The word relax is the Greek word for losen. My in-laws have a boat they park on their dock at their house in Coastal North Carolina. And when they park the boat they have to tie it back up. And if you tie the boat too lose, it will drift away from the dock you have it anchored to and into the canal. So Jesus is telling them exactly how much

Verse 19

What does it mean to relax/losen

Idea of least

The need to teach not lead astray

Conformity to the kingdom is greatest

Verse 20

Pharisaic righteousness

True righteousness

Conclusion: You see, it’s very easy to look at what Jesus was saying as just being about whether or not the Old Testament is still important. And obviously he was stressing that. But what he was making clear is that the OT was more than just a measuring stick or even more than just a list of rules. The Old Testament was what pointed to why we needed a savior and that one was coming. And it stresses that true righteousness was not found in external show. No, it is found in one’s heart and who they are. And this is only available in Christ. We cannot be considered righteous apart from Christ. So I ask you tonight, are you in Christ? Have you been made righteous by the blood of Christ the lamb? If not, and you feel it is time, don’t let the moment pass. I will be here. Come talk to me about what it means to be a follower of Christ.