Real with Ourselves, God, and Others

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Intro

Honored to be here
What a cool space
So blessed
Incredible church
Incredible Pastor
Incredible Youth Pastor
Caleb
One of the most talented people I know
Incredible leader
I’ve had the opportunity to drum for Caleb a couple times
Your leadership ability in those moments is very evident
I know exactly what you want
But not in a domineering way
More like an encouraging and clarifying way
You’re blessed
Thank you so much for this opportunity
I heard a rumor that your theme for the year is ROGO
Real with Ourselves, God, and Others
That’s fantastic
I’ve been studying the sermon on the mount recently
It’s really challenge me in this area
So much of our lives is about appearance
Trying to get the right angle for our photos
Making sure the right moments in our lives make it online
There’s a version of us that we want to present
Athletic
Smart
Attractive
Talented
Religious
We make sure that we do everything we can to uphold a certain reputation
If we’re not careful it can become more about activity than identity
We can put a lot of effort into looking like we’re following Jesus
But very little effort into becoming a follower of Jesus
Or a lot of effort into appearing righteous
Rather than being righteous

Context

The Sermon on the Mount
Beatitudes
Blessed are the poor in Spirit...
Salt and Light
Then Jesus clears some things up for the people
This is early in His ministry and people have questions

Matthew 5:17-20

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. 18 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. 19 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. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.”

Pray

Open our eyes to behold the wondrous things of your law.

Image

I have a wife named Abby
Got married in 2020
Been married now for 4 years
She’s about got me trained
There were some things that I needed to learn
Fold towels the right way
“So you leave the shower curtain open?”
I also had to learn how to clean the house
My version of a clean house
Laundry is done and hung up
No dishes in the sink
No junk on the counter
My shoes aren’t in the kitchen
Sweeping
Vacuuming
Get the dog hair off the couch
Boom… Bob’s your uncle… you’re good to go
I’m off on Friday’s and she works on Friday’s
Several times that she’s called or texted me
We’re having company tonight, can you clean up the house while you’re at home today
Of course, I’d love to
She’d come home
I would be proud of myself
She would come in
“I thought you said you cleaned the house?”
“I did…”
“What you did was straighten up the house… You didn’t clean it.”
Abby’s version
Getting on your hands and knees and crawling around the house cleaning baseboards
Getting on a ladder and dusting the ceiling fans
Getting out the Clorox wipes and wiping down the walls
Doing a deep scrub on the toilette
Mopping everything
The whole house is completely spotless and smells like essential oils
Comes by it honestly
Her dad…
Vacuum at 10pm
Mow the yard late at night with his headlights on
When they go on trips, he mops his way out of the door
I’ve never met anyone that works as hard as he does
He passed it down to Abby
I’d be very proud of what I had done
And then soon find out that wasn’t what she had meant
My version of cleaning the house was just about straightening things up and making it look clean.
Abby’s version of cleaning the house involved actually cleaning the house.
“This isn’t what I was talking about at all…”

Transition

In this passage Jesus is clarifying what it means to be righteous.
There were different ideas
The pharisees were leading the way
The were the teachers
The religious
The righteous
“This isn’t what the law is about at all…”
You got it all wrong
I believe Jesus is trying to make two points in this passage
His teaching is in no way different from the Old Testament
His teaching is very different from that of the scribes and pharisees.

Jesus’s Teaching is in no way different from the Old Testament

Matthew 5:17 - “Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.”

Don’t Think

He begins on the defensive
People had their questions about Him
Healed a couple people on the Sabbath
Touching people with leprosy
He’s not following the rituals
His followers aren’t fasting twice a week
He’s not honoring the Sabbath in the way the expect him to
He didn’t go through the typical route to become a Rabbi
Not a pharisee
Not an expert of the law
He didn’t follow the traditional path
He often denounced those who did follow the traditional path
Told them they were wrong
Told others how dangerous their teachings were
He lived a different lifestyle
Often spending time with those that the religious leaders would never talk to
People have their questions
Who is this man?
Where did he come from?
What does he believe?
Why doesn’t he follow the law?
Why is he so different?
Does he even care about the scriptures?

Jesus wants to clear this up

Abolish

Dismantle
Tear down
Lincoln Logs
Like when you’re finished playing with Lincoln logs
You take the house apart piece by piece until no house exists at all
Abolish
That’s the word
Removing stones from a structure
Piece by piece
Until the law doesn’t even exist anymore

The Law and the Prophets

The Old Testament

Fulfill

This is where this passage gets tough
What does that mean?
Why didn’t he say “obey?”
Or honor?
Instead he chose to use the word fulfill
He did this on purpose

Fulfill

To complete a period of time
Such as in a prison sentence
Did you fulfill your requirements?
Yes. I stayed in prison for this long.
D. A. Carson - “To be that to which the other party pointed.”
Here’s what I understand to be going on
Jesus is saying the law and the prophets were pointing to something.
I’m who they were pointing to.
Jesus isn’t doing away with the law
But he’s also not just keeping the law or honoring the law
He is who the law was pointing to
This same thought is echoed throughout the New Testament. I’ll give you a couple moments.
Romans 10:4 - For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes
Christ is the goal of the law
Like a race… What’s the goal? Follow the path until you get to the finish line
What’s the goal of the law? To get to Jesus Christ
It’s pointing you somewhere
Or rather it’s pointing you to someone
That someone is Jesus
Romans 3:21-26 - But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets.
This is what the law and the prophets were trying to tell you about this whole time
This is what Jesus is saying…
The law and the prophets were always pointing to something
I am who they were pointing to
This makes sense when it comes to the prophets
The prophets often made predictions about the coming messiah
Where he would be born
The lineage he would be born into
The events surrounding his birth
The type of life he would live
The type of death he would die
Jesus fulfilled all of those
But it doesn’t just say the prophets are fulfilled in Christ
It says the law is fulfilled in Christ
Even the law was pointing forward to something
Passover
Jesus is our passover
Through his blood we can be saved
Jesus was the ram that took Isaac’s place
Everything to do with the temple was pointing us to Christ
Jesus himself equates himself to the temple
Tear down this temple and I’ll rebuilt it in 3 days
The sacrifice system
Never meant to take our sins away
But was to point us to the one who could
All of the moral laws
Were to show us that we could never be perfect
We are in need of a savior
i didn’t come to abolish. I came to fulfill.
the law was pointing to something. That was me.
and
Why study the Old Testament?
Because it points us to Jesus Christ
This is going to be important until the end of time
We read the Old Testament
Because it points us to Christ
It teaches us about Christ
There are principles to be learned throughout it
The Jewish law may not bind us
We learn what it looks like to fear God
What it looks like to trust God
We get different glimpses of who God is
Jesus loves the Old Testament
Sees every single bit of it as important
He did not come to abolish it
His not teaching anything different than that of the Old Testament
But here comes the meat of the passage...

Jesus is teaching something very different than that of the scribes and pharisees

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.”
Your religious leaders have gotten it all wrong
What God expects from you is a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees
Imagine that statement
Your religious leaders have lead you astray
They’ve gotten it all wrong
The best people in your culture?
They’re still not good enough
There is a way to be righteous but you’re going to have to be better than the best person you’ve ever met
The Pharisees have gotten it wrong
The Pharisees
Where did they come from
Period of history for about 400 years before Christ was born that we have nothing recorded in the bible about
400 years of silence
There are history books
Just not bible books
Rose to prominence early on in that period
Believed that a strict adherence to the law would bring about the messiah
Jesus was just waiting on everyone to be good enough
Boy were they good
Pharisee = Separatist
Set apart
Most outstanding people in all of the nation
Spent their lives studying the law
Teaching the law
Dissecting the law
Highly respected men of God
Looked up to
They took God’s law and then added more laws to it that made them keep God’s laws
Sabbath
Added laws about knot tying
Moving dirt
Sweeping floors
How far you could walk
Just to make sure no one broke the Sabbath
Moses’s law you were required to fast once a year
Pharisees made you fast twice a week
You want me to be better than those guys?
We’re already falling short of keeping their commands
How can we be any more strict?
But it’s these guys that Jesus calls out more than anyone else…

What was the issue with the pharisees?

The religion of the Pharisees was just about looking righteous
Matthew 15:8 “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”
Matthew 23 - White washed tombs
Look perfectly fine on the outside
The inside is full of death
They were all about appearance
Looking righteous
Looking good
Looking holy
Had nothing to do with their character
Didn’t actually love people
Didn’t actually have a heart of generosity
Weren’t humble
Weren’t meek
Didn’t long for righteousness
You have heard that is was said...
Don’t murder
Don’t even have hate in your heart for someone else
Don’t commit adultery
Don’t even have lust in your heart
Don’t break your oaths
Let’s just always be honest people
Then he ends that section
I want you to actually care for people
Not just people who look like you and talk like you
I want you to love even your enemies
This isn’t just about looking righteous
This is about having a righteousness that comes from within
It’s from the inside out
This is someone I wish I would have understood early on… Especially when it comes to lust...
I’d set these boundaries
As long as I don’t cross this boundary I’m good
Think I’m righteous because I hadn’t done certain things or looked at certain things
Meanwhile I had done nothing to clean up my thoughts and imagination
You’re still not there
The religion of the pharisees was more about doing righteous acts
Going through the motions
Attending the services
Giving the sacrifices
Often seen
Praying on the street corners
They’d let the crowd know when they gave to the poor
When they fasted they made sure it could be seen all over their faces
Jesus corrects...
No that’s not right
This isn’t about going through religious motions
It’s about having an authentic love for God and love for others
Pray
Go into your private room
This is a conversation between you and God
Be okay with no one else knowing about that conversation but you and God
Give
Don’t do it for attention
Do it because you care about people
Do it because you care about the Kingdom
I know someone who can’t help but to let everyone know every time she gives her offering
It’s like it’s burning within her
She’s so hungry for the applause of others rather than the approval of God
Fast
Just do it privately
Don’t tell anyone
Learn to be satisfied with God alone knowing about your quiet time
So many of us only have a quiet time with the Lord because it looks good on our snapchat story
We just do it for the likes
We just do it for the comments
We just do it because it fits the brand we’re trying to portray
The goal is that we would spend time in prayer and studying scripture because we have this internal desire to be with our heavenly father
We want to talk to Him
We want to be with Him
We want to hear from Him
We’re not satisfied with just putting on this religious mask.
We actually want to become like Christ.
We want to love God.
We want to love others.
It’s not just about maintaining an outward appearance of righteousness. It’s about being transformed from the inside out.
This is why Jesus says… “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the pharisees you’ll never get into the kingdom of Heaven.”
Because what I’m looking for isn’t just external. It’s internal.
The true fulfillment of the law… is righteousness that comes from within.
Poor in Spirit
Broken over sin
Humble
Hunger and thirst for righteousness
“I’m convinced that much of Christianity for the last 100 years has had it’s focus more on looking like a Christian than on being a Christian.” - JP

How to be righteous?

Rather than just maintaining outward appearances, the goal is transformation from the inside out.

call Carley up to play
An external righteousness isn’t it
That’s fake
It gets you nothing more than the occasional applause of man
If you want the applause of Heaven, it’s going to have to be a righteousness that comes from within
You may be able to manage your outward appearance for a season, but to be transformed from the inside takes a work of God
Jesus and Nicodemus (John 3)
Jesus tells Nicodemus he needs to be born again
Become a new creation
You need to be completely changed
You need to be changed from the inside out
How?
John 3:14–16 - “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”
Call on Jesus and ask him to change you
If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation
The interesting thing...
In one sense… If you’re in Christ you’ve already been declared righteous
Your punishment for sin was placed on Jesus Christ
Now standing before the father he sees you as righteous
Nothing can take that away
The blood of Jesus covers you
But in another sense… you’re being made righteous
You’re righteous
And you’re being made righteous
On this side of eternity God is still shaping you into his image
Working to get rid of the flesh
Working to get rid of sin
This sermon isn’t about how to become a Christian… It’s about how to follow Christ
If you want the applause of heaven...
It’s about being transformed from the inside out
Not about maintaining outward appearances
Not about going through religious motions
But becoming more and more like Christ from within
So that even our thoughts line up with his thoughts
How does this happen?
1 Corinthians 15:10 “10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”
It’s God who changes us
But we work as hard as we can
What does that mean?
We study scripture
Not for attention
But for transformation
Praying
Begging God to change us
Begging God to help us love others
Having a group around us to hold us accountable
We’re honest with them when we’re tempted
We pray for one another
We call each other out when we see each other slipping
Getting plugged in to church
Worship and serve and learn with other believers
Not for the applause of man
But for the approval of heaven
We do these things so that God can use them to transform us from the inside out
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