Transformation and the Law: More than checking boxes

Introduction

Hello friends, great to see you folks here and online, my name is Clint and I am excited to be sharing with you all today. I don’t think I have given a message since this summer, so for those of you who I haven’t met yet, let me tell you some things about me that might be helpful for this message.

First, I’ve been married to my wonderful wife for 11 years. We have two beautiful little girls, our oldest Clara just turned 6 and is thriving in Kindergarten, our younger daughter is Lucy, she’s 4 and she is the perfect combination of sweet and spicy you could ask for.

I’ve been a pastor here for 12 years. Last fall I made the decision to step back to part time and go back to school, so I’m full time at UMD and will, provided I don’t screw it up, graduate in May.

I’m a huge fantasy and sci-fi nerd, so if I drop a reference that you don’t get, don’t worry about it, I’m used to it, it’s not you, it’s me. I would also love to hear what you are reading, so feel free to grab me in the lobby after the service and make some book recommendations.

We are starting off a series that we are calling Beyond Religion. Becca did the first message last Sunday, and if you haven’t listened to it, you should go do it, it was a great message. In this series, we are going to be looking at Jesus’s teachings in Matthew and how they point us towards transformation. God never meant for us to just go through the motions, our Faith in him should make a difference in our lives. It should transform us, it should transform things around us. It should matter.

I think this is super important for us today. It is easy to check the boxes we feel like we need to check in life. If we are only checking the boxes, we are missing out. For example, I thrive on routine. I get up, go to the gym, come home, help get the kids to school, shower, have too much coffee and a bagle, then I’m out the door, work work work, run the errand of the day, pick the kids up after school, put the dishes away, cook dinner, clean up the kitchen, play with the kids for half an hour or so, then start the bedtime routine, kids finally get to bed, and then it’s my turn to go to sleep. Routine. Day in, day out. I thrive in it. However, sometimes, I find that I’m going through the motions, almost like I’m on autopilot. You ever find that? When we are in autopilot, the days slip into one another, and we can get, what tired, burned out, irritable, exhausted, worse things….. However, I’ve had stretches of time when even though I’m in my routine, my internal attitudes change. I am present to the moment, I am in sync with what is going on around me. That’s when I feel like I’m alive. I’m not just cooking dinner, I’m talking with my wife while we are cooking together. I’m teaching my kids how to properly treat the cast iron pan, I’m not checking a box, I’m living life to the fullest. That’s what we are going to be talking about today, how to let our Faith not fall into religion, how not to just check boxes, but how to experience transformation

Specifically, we are going to be talking about the Old Testament Law, and how rather than getting rid of it, Jesus expands it, he fulfills it, he sets the expectation of what our lives could look like. We are going to see how the Law points us towards transformation and the good life that God has destined for each and every one of us. The Law is important, and it is an import thing for us even in 2025 to mediate on and study.

Now, maybe your thinking, Clint, the Law is boring, that’s Old Testament, do we have to talk about it? What does Exodus 23:19 “Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.” Have to do with me today? Yeah, that one’s in there. In fact, it’s in there three times!

In her book “Bearing God’s Name : Why Sinai still matters” Carmen Imes, writes that there is a clear distinction between the Isrealites before the recieved the law on Mount Sinai, and after they recieved the law.

Quick refresher. God has chosen the people of Isreal to be his people. They are enslaved in Egypt. God trains up this murder named Moses and says hey, go get my people out slavery. Stuff happens, plagues and the what not, Pharoah lets Moses people go, the Israelites end up crossing the Sea of Reeds while being chased by the Egyptians, and then they find themselves as refugees hanging out in the desert.

So they are this ragtag group in the desert, but then they come to the Mountain of God, to Mt. Sini. There, Yahweh God shows up in power. The Mountain is smoking, intense things are happening, and God gives the Israelites a Law to follow. God says, doing these things are what you have to do to be my people. They leave from that spot knowing what it means to be God’s chosen people. They have a code to follow.

Every cool organization has a code, the Jedi had a code in Star Wars, Star Fleet had the prime directive, even the Pirates of the Caribbean had the Pirates Code. Keep to the Code. These things have power.

When I was in Basic Training they made is memorize “The Solider’s Creed” (Slide) This took a ton of people from different walks of life and taught them what it meant to be soldier.

The Law teaches us what living a life transformed by the power of the holy spirit looks like.

So let’s think of the Law a bit differently. What if it’s not just rules. What if it teaches us a way of life. What if the law wasn’t a series of boxes to check, but a character code that showed us how a member of God’s family should act.

Today, we are going to look at Matthew 5:17–20 You can find bibles in the chair backs before you. But before we dive in, let me pray for us.

PRAY

““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 truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

#1 The Law (v.17-18)

a) What is the Law?

Alright, Jesus talks here about the Law, but what is the Law? As we talked about earlier, these were a series of teachings that were given to Moses on Mount Sini. They are the first five books of the bible, which to our Jewish friends, is the Torah, or you might have heard the word Pentateuch thrown out there. Penta, 5, teuch……teuch a look in a book, i don’t know, anyway, first 5 books. The Prophets are the prophetic writings we see in the Old Testament, Isaiah, Ezekiel, ect.

The law consists of 365 prohibitions (things I can’t do, one for every day of the year) and 248 commands, things to do, which come to a grand total of 613 things.

So, we can see it’s things like the Ten Commandments (Slide), but it’s also things like laws about mold Leviticus 13:58 “Any fabric, woven or knitted material, or any leather article that has been washed and is rid of the mold, must be washed again. Then it will be clean.”” Or stuff like you aren’t supposed to boil a goat in it’s moms milk.

As you can see, there is a lot of stuff in here, big stuff, and stuff about normal everyday life.

b) Why the clarification?

Jesus said he had not come to get rid of the law. Now why do you think he would need to say that? Well, it seems likely that he knew that he would be called a lawbreaker. On first glance, he constantly does things that were considered unlawful. He healed on the Sabbath, unlawful. His disciples picked grain on the sabbath, which was considered unlawful. He spoke with people who were ceremonially unclean, he ate with sinners, he claimed to be the son of God. All of these things would have been unlawful, or would have flown in the face of the oral tradition that the religious elites had added to the law, or had interpreted the law to mean.

Here is an example of what I mean. It was considered unlawful to work on the Sabbath, it was meant to be a day of rest. But what exactly is work? The story I heard was that, during this time period, it was considered unlawful, it was breaking the sabbath, if you had to use two hands to untie a knot, but if you could untie it with one hand, then it wasn’t work and you were good to go.

Jesus clarifies here that he didn’t come to get ride of the law. It would be easy for us to miss this, to think that because of Jesus, the Law no longer applies. The Law didn’t go away and it won’t go away. Jesus clarifies this and then he goes on to say that he fulfills them.

c) What is meant by fulfill?

What does fulfill mean. Well, in my reading it seems like there are a couple of schools of thought. One is that Jesus satisfied the Law, he fulfilled it, he checked the boxes so that we don’t have to. Maybe, but this doesn’t seem to match with the all of Jesus’s teachings. Another way to look at it, and this kept coming up over and over again, is that Jesus, meets the expectations of the law, that he expands them, that he shows us what it actually looks like to keep the law.

One commentary put it this way saying that

“Jesus does not contradict or abrogate the law and the prophets, but neither does he merely reaffirm them. He fulfills them or brings them to their divinely intended goal because they point to him

He doesn’t relax the standards, saying “I’ve got you covered, do whatever you want” Instead, he says, if you want to live the Good Life, if you want to keep the Law, follow me. One commentator said that it was like when we eat a really good meal that satisfies all of our expectations. It shows us how a meal should be.

The Law, shows us what life could be, it’s not boxes to check. The Law is the external behaviors of our internal attitudes. The more relationally close we are to Jesus, the more we see our behavior change.

My Dad always said “Hang with coconuts, become a coconut” If we hang with Jesus, we become like Jesus.

The Law shows us what the behaviors of a person who is living a Kingdom life are. For example, that verse about the goat and the calf. Some people say that boiling a calf in it’s mothers milk was a magic spell in the region at the time, and that’s why this is in there. There might be some truth to that, and several scholars that I read lean more in a different direction. They think this was an ancient idiom, like “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” We find this wedged right into the middle of the law, almost as a reminder.

Don’t boil a young got in it’s mothers milk. You have this thing, milk, that’s supposed to be life giving, and it becomes a source of death. Don’t take a good thing and make it into a bad thing, it’s not the Kingdom way. Unfortunately, sometimes we get bogged down in the Law, and instead of pointing us towards Jesus, towards life, towards the kIngdom, towards transformation we get so caught up in the letter of the law, the externals, and we miss the point, the internals, and it brings us to death. We get so focused on keeping the law, that maybe we don’t practice the law as we should.

Example. In a few verses it talks about lust, and if you look at a person with lust, its not a great thing. Well, where has that led some things. Ladies, you need to make sure that you don’t cause a boy to stumble by showing your ankles. It teaches men to be afraid of and hate women, and it body shames women. That’s not living Kingdom life. The Law is meant to bring life, to draw us deeper into the Kingdom.

The more we experience Jesus, the more we experience the good life of the Kingdom But what is the Kingdom anyway, because Jesus talks a-lot about it, like verse 19.

#2 The Kingdom (v.19)

a)What is the Kingdom of Heaven?

In Matthew 5:19 “Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus talks a lot about the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Kingdom of God. What is the Kingdom of Heaven besides being an alright Orlando Bloom movie.

You know, one of the things that makes the Vineyard unique is our embrace of Kingdom of God Theology. Pretty much everything we do is based around this concept of the Kingdom. I had a conversation one time with a young person that had, I think moved away for college and was excited to tell me they found a church that was “like the Vineyard”. I asked them, “oh, so they teach about the kingdom of God?” and they said something like “I’m not sure, but they have good music and great coffee” and I knew that I had let this person down by not helping them to understand the Kingdom of God.

If we want to see transformation in our lives, I think one way to be succesful is by understanding and practicing the Kingdom of God.

So what is the Kingdom of Heaven? One of they ways that I have heard it explained is that the Kingdom is when God, the King, gets his way 100 percent of the time. The Good King, who wills only good for his children, wins, gets his way, all the time. Now, it would be easy to think that happens only in this “Place” we call heaven. That’s what I grew up being taught. That when we die, we go to Heaven, which is this pie in the sky future where everything is perfect. And sure, there is truth to that. And it is so much more than that.

The Kingdom of God, his perfect rule and reign, is happening now. It is breaking in to this reality. Jesus ushered the Kingdom in. He wasn’t able to live a perfect life, a life fulfilling the law because he was god, no he did it as a human who was in tune with God. Jesus shows us what we can be like, what we were intended to be like, and as Becca talked about last week, he promises that if we stay connected to him, he will transform us and we will experience more of that Kingdom life right now.

As I nerd, I like to think of it like the show Sliders. I’ll be really surprised if anyone remembers this show. It ran 5 seasons starting in 1995, and it stared Jerry O’Connell. Well, in the show, there is a group of people who open wormholes and “slide” between different earths, different dimensions. Sometimes they are in a dimension that is pretty close to their home earth, sometimes it’s really different. And they are trying to get home. I picture Heaven like it’s the ultimate dimension, everything is how it should be. The book of Revelation talks about this. In the Kingdom of God, there is no sickness, no death. Nobody has to say goodbye to a loved one as cancer kills them. Nobody has to make the choice to kill or be killed. Nobody wakes up and finds out they have AIDS. Everything is how it should be, everything is, to use a Hebrew word, Shalom, an all surpassing peace and rightness.

Picture that with me for a second. That is were we are going. What Jesus did, is he opened a “Wormhole” to that. And, as we follow him, that rightness, begins to seep into our world. The Spirit of God begins to transform things to be as it is in that perfect dimension. And, eventually, all things will be transformed. That gateway will be flung so far open that the two dimensions, Heaven and Earth, will become fully immersed in each other, and everything will become perfect.

This flooding of the Heavenly Dimension, The Kingdom of God, into the here and now, is one of the reasons we see Miracles happen, like physical healing. We pray for healing, knowing that in God’s Kingdom fully known, the healing has already happened. We are praying that God’s Kingdom comes Now. Sometimes it does.

Sometimes when Jesus talked about the Kingdom, he made it sound like you can reach out and touch it. It’s accessible. It’s right there, right now.

b) How do we Practice this?

And when Jesus says to practice his commands, I think this in part what he is talking about. He is talking about living the Law, he is talking about living like people who embody the Characteristics and the Code of Conduct of the Heavenly Realm.

In Native American spirituality, one of the way’s that the kingdom of God is described is by walking Creators Right Road. I want to read verse 19 out of the First Nations translation of the new testament because I think it really helps round out what we are talking about today.

“Anyone who turns away from these instructions and tells others to do the same will be looked down on, as a small one, on Creator’s good road from the spirit-world above. But the ones who do them and teach others to do the same, they will be looked up to as great ones.”

The Law shows us what it looks like to live the good life as we walk Creators good road. But, this Law, this Transformation starts with our internal attitudes, and then spills out into external behaviors.

i) Internal Attitudes (Transformation) and External Behaviors

To see how this works, lets go back to a verse Becca talked about last week

John 15:5 ““I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

Remain in Jesus. Focus on him, draw close to him. That comes first. But how? I think that God is working to transform each of us, whether we realize it or not.

Can you think of a time when you felt connected to something bigger than yourself? Maybe this was a moment standing by the Big Lake, when you felt in awe of the natural world, maybe it was when you were watching your kids play and were just overcome with joy, maybe it was experiencing a moment of peace when you were surrounded by chaos. That is you experiencing the love of God, that is you drawing close to the Creator and his goodness. That can be a path towards transformation. What led up to that moment? How can you lean in to that transformation?

Quick personal example. I am a man of many hobbies, too many hobbies. I grew up in Aitkin, very rural. You can take the kid out of Aitkin, but you can’t take the Aitkin out of the kids, right? One of my new hobbies is trapping. This example might not be for everyone, but bear with me. So the other day, I get back from extended family Christmas, it’s late, but I want to go check my traps. So, I’m stumbling around in the dark, checking traps, and what do I find. Someone’s dog. And she’s fine. She’s scared, but she’s trapped in a way where she’s fine. So, I get her out of the trap, call the owner, explain to him what happened, and bring her to him. We have a good chat, it’s fine. I’m telling people about this, and one thing several people have asked is “So did you just say you find her?” Never even occured to me to lie. That day had been a great day. I had experinced God’s love in so many ways, in my personal reflections, in hanging out with my family, in being greatful for all the blessings in my life, and the external behaviors of that internal shalom, was me just being honest and truthful about what happened. My internal relationship with Christ, helped my external law keeping.

What’s that thing for you that helps fuel your connection to Jesus? Is it quite prayer time in the morning? Is it reading scripture and learning about all the way God has moved in the past and will move today and in the future? Is it spending time in nature, or with friends? What’s that thing that fuels the transformation in your life. How can you lean in to what’s working, how can you draw close to Jesus, so that you internal transformation spills out. How can we not just check the boxes of the law, but live the law?

#3 The Law and the Good Life (v.20)

a) Not Boxes to check

Because that’s what this is ultimately about, not checking boxes, but having our character transformed to be people who live out the law as easy as breathing. This is what Jesus is talking about in verse 20 when he says people need to be more righteous than the Pharisees’. We aren’t going to dive too much into this one today because Dr. Doug is going to focus on this verse next week, but really quickly outwardly the Pharisees were checking the boxes. But inside, they were greedy, and power hungry.

By calling this out, Jesus is pointing us towards the order we need to do things. Pursue Jesus. Let him transform our Character. And then that Effects our behavior.

b) Transformed people

A transformed life is the by product of a relationship with Jesus. It’s like, if you are Pasty skinned like me, if I spend time outside, I am going to get a sunburn. Spending time in the light will change me.

Spending time in the light of Jesus love will change us. Where have you experinced this, and where can you lean in to more?

Can you picture what your life would be like, if you were a more transformed version of yourself? If, instead of trying not to lie, you were just a person who didn’t lie. If instead of trying to not dwell on the shame of things gone in your life, you were a person without shame. If instead of worrying what other’s thought of you, you felt secure in who you are as a person. If instead of only hoping for a better tomorrow, you were able to live everyday knowing that today has the potential to be the greatest day ever, a day where the Kingdom of God fully takes over.

We can live more and more of those lives, by pressing into our relationship with God, by letting Jesus transform us into Law Livers instead of just law keepers.

Conclusion

Like I said earlier, I am operating under the assumption that God is working in each and every one of us. As a human, you bear the image of God, there is a divine spark in all of us, the Holy Spirit lives in all of us. Our job is to recognize where Holy Spirit is working, and then create space for Holy Spirit to Transform us.

So, where have you or where are you already experiencing transformation. Where is that transformation already begun to happen. I’m not talking about the new years resolution thing “I should swear less, I should exercise more” those things are fine, but let’s look at where the Lord is working right now.

Can you think of a moment where you have experienced that transformation? Like, a moment where under other circumstances, you would have had that extra drink, but you didn’t. A moment where you normal would have gotten angry, but didn’t. I moment where instead of being annoyed, you felt compassionate. Can you, right now, think of one of those moments? A moment where you experienced the Good Life, the Kingdom of God, Creators good path? Right now, think of it….

Do you have your moment? In that moment, you had experinced the transformation of Jesus. What lead up to it? What was working that allowed you to experience that transformation? Maybe you had spent some time in prayer that morning. Maybe you had spent time in nature. Maybe you had gotten a good nights sleep. What was it that you had already done that had allowed Holy Spirit to work ?

My challenge to you this week, is do more of what was already working. Don’t add on extra things, don’t give yourself more boxes to check. Find where God is working, use that transformation as a model of how to lean in, how to experience more transformation of our internal attitudes, that then effect our external behaviors.

Together friends, let’s become the type of people that don’t just keep the Law, but through the transformative love of Christ, let’s become people who live the Law.

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This is a chance to create space to experience the kingdom. Communion can be that wormhole that brings us into contact with the living Kingdom.