The Life of Jesus-Week 7

Matthew 5:48 NIV

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Jesus says this phrase a lot during the last part of Matthew 5

‘You have heard it said… But I say to you...’

Now, this sounds like Jesus saying - the OT, they used to teach this. But i’m doing something different.

That’s not the case. God wasn’t speaking against the OT. In fact, in this chapter, many of the things HE says HE’S saying can be found right in the OT.

Jesus wasn’t redefining the past. He was pointing people back to the past.

Jesus takes a series of quotes - and shows us how below the bar the people were at the time.

Because in the OT, they had the law - but God was clear about His priorities, his standards, and how Holy HE was - and the israelites settled for simply ‘not doing’ a bunch of bad things. They missed the character of God.

And Jesus says - this is what I was trying to tell you since the very beginning.

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God’s Priority on Relationships

Matthew 5:31–32 NIV

“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

AND

Matthew 5:43–45 NIV

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

This one is a hard one. For the divorce one, we need some context.

There were competing perspectives at the time. Some rabbis were saying, you can only get a divorce if they are unfaithful to the marriage. Some were saying - any reason is fair game.

And everyone was asking this question - where is that line that i’m allowed to break this relationship. Whether it was about business relationships, marriages, friendships, whatever.

Where’s the line that I can draw where I get to stop trying.

And Jesus says - here it is. The line is:

We need to always do good to everyone at all times

Jesus reminds us - there are people who HATE him, who curse his name - and he sends them the sun, and the rain, and everything else he blesses everyone else with.

Parents of teenagers can probably relate more with this than others. But could you imagine what it would be like to feed, clothe, and shelter people who hated you?

God says, I look at even the people who despise me - and I take care of them.

But then, he reminds us how important relationships ACTUALLY ARE to him.

With divorce, Jesus reminds us - that if you even look at another woman lustfully, you’ve already committed adultery in that core relationship of marriage.

If you say ‘hate your enemy’, you’re turning against people that God chooses to continue to love.

in both relationships - towards our most cherished relationships and our most hated enemies - God says, it’s OUR job to do good all the time.

This doesn’t absolve the other person from doing good - because Jesus is the same thing to them - but it cuts out any excuse WE have to do the wrong thing

Relationships are SO IMPORTANT to God, that he doesn’t want us going anywhere near stuff that would cause them to be destroyed.

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God’s Perspective of Sin

Matthew 5:21–22 NIV

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

and later...

Matthew 5:27–28 NIV

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

This one is tough. Because we’d all say, murder is wrong. adultery is wrong. So whatever you do, just avoid those lines.

If you think about it - that kind of defines our position on sin. How close can I get before it becomes a problem.

We want to say, maybe it’s ok to look, just not touch. It’s ok to insult, just not hit. It’s ok to think and dream and plot, just not act.

But Jesus says - that line starts way earlier than you think it does.

Problems start because we’re facing the direction of sin on a daily basis

The thing is - Jesus alone knows the real extent and damage that sin has on us, and the world around us. And he’s saying - don’t even face that direction.

And he ups the ante here. People were drawing hard lines and saying, if you cross these - you’ll face judgment.

And jesus says, for sure, don’t murder - but if you’re angry at a brother or sister, you’ll face judgment.

Don’t commit adultery or you’ll betray that relationship. And jesus says - if you even look at another woman inappropriately, you’ve already betrayed that relationship.

Jesus doesn’t rail against their hard line. He doesn’t say, hey, don’t be so harsh. He says - pick up your line, and move it WAY closer to what you do on a daily basis.

Now, I need to say - I hope people don’t hear any judgment from me here. I know divorce is a really tough thing. My point isn’t to condemn anyone. My point is to talk about when the problems really start.

This one, you could boil it down to, ‘You’ve heard it said that these lines are far away, so don’t worry day to day. Just don’t set off any big landmines. I say - sin is creeping up on you right now, all the time, so you need to master it.

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That segways into our next point

God’s pattern of living

Matthew 5:33–34 (NIV)

“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’

But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all:

Matthew 5:37 NIV

All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

This one on oaths takes a little explaining.

People at the time were acting like, if it wasn’t an oath, it wasn’t good enough. So whatever you said, if you didn’t swear, wasn’t as binding.

We used to have a visual reminder of this in court. Hand on a bible - i swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and blah blah

You see that in another part of Matthew, Jesus blasting the pharisees for their priorities in ‘swearing’:

Matthew 23:16 NIV

“Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’

They had this hierarchical understanding of ‘oaths’. That various external things could hold you more or less to your word (so, swearing by the temple didn’t bind you to anything. But swearing by the GOLD in the temple actually held power).

The truth is - we aren’t any different. We’re conditioned to take a critical eye to whatever anyone says. And we’re very understanding if a person isn’t always, 100% truthful, all the time.

AND

Matthew 5:38–39 NIV

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.

This one ALSO needs some explaining.

This was a law in the OT. It was called ‘The law of retribution’.

But here’s the thing. the law wasn’t ‘hurt people back if they hurt you’.

In fact, there’s no space for an individual application of this law - this was a legal position for the authorities to take.

The point was - let the punishment fit the crime. Don’t exact vengeance on the person.

We are bad at this. We want people who hurt us to suffer. We want people who disagree with us or hate on us to suffer.

People should be able to expect Jesus in us

That doesn’t…necessarily sound like the right summary of those verses.

let me throw this one into the mix.

John 1:17 (NIV)

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Jesus held these two values of grace and truth in perfect harmony.

And here in the SotM, Jesus says - whatever words come out of your mouth need to be true. And he also says - your baseline attitude and action towards other people needs to be grace.

These sound nice and easy. But remember above - God’s lines are in radically different spots than ours.

With truth, we want to be off the hook sometimes. It can be hard to be that person who always says the right thing. Sometimes it’s nice to just, fly a LITTLE off the handle and say things you don’t mean.

Jesus says - let your yes be yes, and your no be no. Always speak the truth, always be reliable. Be that person that someone else can say, you said it, so i know i can trust you because you’re trustworthy. There’s no space for being someone who is only reliable or trustworthy or nice…most of the time.

And when it comes to showing grace, we are great at doing it - with people we like. With people who wrong us, oh, watch out.

And jesus says - turn the other cheek towards them. If they steal from you, give more.

If one of my good friends was like, man I don’t have a good coat. I’d give them one. If one of my enemies showed up, slapped me, and then ripped the shirt off my back - my first thought may not be, hey, that guy probably needs my jacket too.

If I want to see how kind someone is, i’ll look at how they treat their enemies.

And jesus sets this paradigm for us. Every word out of his mouth is truth. And every single thing he does is covered in grace. And he calls us to do the same.

All of this to say:

Be Perfect - like God is Perfect.

That’s how Jesus ends this section of the SotM.

Matthew 5:48 NIV

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

This sounds impossible.

Matthew 19:23–26 NIV

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

So the God who calls us to be perfect - He is our power to BE perfect. It’s impossible for us to do it - but with God, all things are possible.

So in every area, we should strive to be more like God. And lean more on the God who is working to make us all more like him.

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General Notes:

The pharisees created their own system of righteousness that focused on external obedience, and neglected heart issues

Jesus wasn’t countering the OT - he was countering faulty interpretations and applications of the OT

Likewise, he was offering prescriptions that got at the heart of what the issues really were

The correct interpretation of the OT was based on intent and motive

The jewish people sought simply to be able to tick all God’s boxes. Jesus rightly held that they needed to pursue God’s character and perfection (Matt 5:48)

The question can often become, ‘what do i need to do to make sure i get in?’ but the real statement is, ‘I need to be perfect, like my heavenly father is perfect’.

We don’t settle when we’ve ‘done enough’. We work at it all the time.

This isn’t about never being satisfied or always hating ourselves. it’s about not allowing ourselves to reach a point where we kick up our feet and say, ok, i’m done now. i don’t have to do anything else.

Deuteronomy 18:13 “You must be blameless before the Lord your God.” - Same word as in the greek LXX. ‘Perfect’

Jesus came with power - but instead of political or military power, he came with the power to live the life that God wanted for us from the very beginning

Anger / Murder

Anger was the original intent of the law - our desire to take away someone’s status as being made in the image of god, equal to ourselves

Name calling was extremely offensive in jewish culture because it stripped away a person’s identity. Names were very important

Unreconciled anger was equivalent to murder, and created a debt that was impossible to pay

Jesus offered the anti-dote - reconciliation and prioritizing restored relationships

Fulfilling the law of ‘do not murder’ was not ‘avoid homicide’, it was ‘nurture relationships’

He pushed it above and beyond. Drop your gift at the altar and go fix the problem. Settle matters with your enemy. But later - don’t oppose those who steal from you.

It required a supernatural level of commitment - which thankfully he offered!

Adultery

‘Do not commit adultery’ was not about merely preventing pre-marital and extra-marital sex. It was about fostering one-ness with your spouse - which you could not maintain while looking lustfully at someone else

Eye for an eye

The original intent of the law was to remove personal revenge, and ensure that the punishment fit the crime. ‘Eye for an eye’ wasn’t permissible on an individual level

Jews at the time were using the law as permission to hurt people back who hurt them.

The primary obligation isn’t to defend oneself or exact revenge - it is to serve those around you, and bring about the kingdom of God

Love your neighbour / hate your enemy

‘Hate your enemy’ was not in the OT, and Moses actually taught that we should help our enemies when they are in need (Ex. 23:4-5)

God takes care of all people, whether righteous or unrighteous. We respect that by doing the same