Matthew 5:17-6:4
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 9 viewsNotes
Transcript
Clean on the Inside
Clean on the Inside
Jesus doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who gets his feathers ruffled very easily…
Yet, there is one group who seems to know right where all of Jesus’ buttons are.
Its true, we see throughout the Gospels that Jesus saves his harshest rebukes for the Pharisees.
I mean Jesus seems way less annoyed with tax collectors, prostitutes, roman soldiers, adulterers, sinners of all kinds. But, the Pharisees, these guys who appeared to have it all together… who dressed right, acted right, said the right things… it was these guys that really made Jesus angry.
You might say, of course! These are the guys who are going to put Jesus to death. Well, true, but the crowds and the roman government had just as much to do with Jesus death as the pharisees, so that doesn’t seem to be the root of the issue.
As you read through Matthew Jesus unveils more and more og why the pharisees are so frustrating to him. we see this chapter Matthew 23:25-28
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
It is the hypocrisy of the Pharisees that makes Jesus so angry. To put it clearly, it is the difference between their outward appearance and inward condition of their heart.
Jesus states this in Matthew 15
You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
“ ‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
theres this difference between their outward appearance and inward condition of their heart.
We often want to distance ourselves from the pharisees, but the problem is there is at least a little pharisee in all of us. It’s called being human. To one extent or another we are all hypocrites.
We do our best everyday to clean the outside of our cup, but when we look ourselves in the eye through the bathroom mirror we know that no amount of soap can wash the dirtiness in our hearts.
This is Jesus’ point. He is not in the business of changing behavior, though that comes as a natural side effect, he is in the business of changing hearts.
He wants your heart. This isnt just a new testament thing, this isnt new with Jesus, NO Psalm 51:16-17
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
God says I don’t want your sacrifices, I don’t want your good works, thats just not enough… I want your heart fully surrendered to me.
This is the point, you may be able to go through a list and say well Im here at church 2-3 times a month, I pray a few times, occasionally crack open my Bible, maybe you are even in a life group. I don’t cheat on my spouse, I’m at all my kid’s ball games, I don’t abuse any substances. You say, man I am doing pretty good. Yeah sure, all of that is great.
But is your heart fully surrendered to God?
The Pharisees did all the “right things” but their hearts were far from God.
See God doesn’t want simply good behavior, he wants all of you. Let’s dive into what that means this morning. Open up to…
“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 say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 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. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Let’s pray
As we dive in here let’s remember the context. Jesus is preaching a sermon to this large crowd after he has gone throughout the region preaching and healing people of every disease.
It is still early in his ministry and so he has not yet had much trouble with the Pharisees, but in his sermon on the mount is is going to address issues that will come up later in his ministry.
As we continue on in Matthew we will see that the pharisees main concern with Jesus is that he is breaking the laws of torah. He is healing on the sabbath, plucking grain on the sabbath, eating without ritual washing of his hands, eating with tax collectors and sinners, and so on. He is doing all of these things that are breaking the pharisees laws.
Here in the Sermon on the mount, Jesus is already laying a foundation against these future claims.
He says this in verse 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.
So what are the law and the prophets?
“The Law“ Was how Jews referred to the Torah, or the first five books of the old testament. In here are 613 commandments that God had given moses.
“The Prophets” were the rest of the old testament.
So Jesus says he did not come to abolish these laws and prophecies, he came to fulfill them.
Now it is easy to understand how he fulfills the prophets, because well, as Jesus claims in John 5 all of it is about him. He is the ultimate fulfillment of the OT prophecies, and he is the ultimate end of all things.
So of course he did not come to abolish the prophets, but to fulfill them
Now what about the law
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.
So Jesus makes it abundantly clear he has not come to the earth to remove one word of the law.
Remember when we talk about the law we are referring to the 613 commandments given in the first five books of the Bible. Jesus says I am not abolishing them.
Jesus then doubles down, 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.
Jesus says you cannot relax even the smallest of these commandments if you plan to enter the kingdom of Heaven.
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Let me read that again. Wait so I have to be more righteous, I have to be more good than the Pharisees? How is that even possible?
The pharisees didn’t just follow the 613 commandments they followed thousands of other oral laws they made to “build a fence” around the law
These were the holiest of the holiest from outward appearance and Jesus is telling the crowds they need to be more holy?
We have two responses to this, 1… I’m screwed… 2… I really hope Jesus doesn’t stop there. Good news is… he doesn’t.
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
Jesus brings in one of the 613 laws… “Thou shall not murder” but then he doesn’t leave it there...
The law says you shouldn’t murder, but I say if you have hate in your heart you have committed murder all the same.
So Jesus sets up this same distinction we see prophesied in the book of psalms I read earlier… they honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.
This distinction between right action and a heart surrendered to him. A difference between right action and a right condition of the heart.
It is one thing not to murder, it is another thing to love the people you want to hate.
And Jesus gives more of these examples:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all… for Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
So in all of these Jesus is saying yes there is a law here, do’t murder, don’t commit adultery, oaths, so on and so forth. But he is uncovering the heart issue underneath/
You begin to see how you could be more righteous than a pharisee. Jesus says its not about following just the letter of the law, see thats not enough. God doesn’t want us to be merely rule followers, he wants us to be people with a new heart.
And this ultimately comes back to the heart of the law Matthew 22:36-40
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Notice what he says, on these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. He says under all of the 613 laws, under all of the words of the old testament, under all of it, is this great end. Love of God and neighbor.
The goal of the law was to give us guidelines, to help us know what it looks like to love God and love neighbor.
The problem is that we took it as a to do list. We took it to say if I do ABC then I am fine, all the while neglecting love of God and neighbor.
You can never commit physical adultery but dishonor God, your spouse, and your neighbor everyday of your life by looking lustfully on another person.
Jesus doesn’t want us to merely not commit adultery, but to love God and our neighbor by treating every person with dignity and respect both in our minds and in our actions.
Most of us will never commit murder but can we honestly say that we love God and neighbor when hate for certain people, certain groups, certain image bearers of God when hate for those neighbors fills our heart and seeps out from our soul. Is that loving God and neighbor.
An eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth was meant to bring order and Justice to the people of God, but it was turned into a vessel for revenge and hate. True love of neighbor turns the other cheek, goes the second mile, gives the shirt of his back.
Do you see this?
Jesus didn’t save us to be rule followers, he saved us to be Kingdom of God bringers. We are to be, as Jesus says just after the beatitudes and before the our passage for today, chapter 5 verse 12 we are to be the salt and light of the earth, a city on a hill.
As followers of Jesus we are to show the world the love of God, to lay before them ourselves fully surrendered to Christ so that they may look and say “I want that too”
If our lives are marked by rule following and not love for God and neighbor we have missed the point entirely.
This is what it means to be more righteous than a pharisee, not following more rules, not scrubbing harder on the outside, it’s being transformed at the heart level.
Jesus isn’t calling us to outperform the Pharisees at religion — He’s calling us to a righteousness that starts in the heart and overflows into action.
Now, this is where balance comes in because remember, we are not to relax the laws of God, we must pursue obedience to the commands of God, AND there is a large part of this heart work that is done by Holy Spirit sanctifying us. How do we hold together obedience and heart transformation? How do we pursue holiness without becoming the very Pharisees Jesus warns about?
The question then becomes, how do we live in the tension?
On one hand, we cant change our hearts we need the holy spirit to do that, on the other hand we are called to be obedient to the word of God, all the while we don’t want to be hypocritical pharisees merely following the law.
We as human followers of Jesus live in this very real tension.
So here’s where we go with this.
We don’t relax the commands of God. We every day choose righteousness and obedience, and when we fail we come to the foot of the cross to receive forgiveness.
We examine our hearts, in prayer through the Holy Spirit, for where we may be following the rules but missing love of God and neighbor.
And this is the practical application for today.
For some of you God may be knocking on your heart this morning saying, wake up you have been relaxing my commands. You have been living in sin and disobedience and its time for you to repent of your sin, and return to the arms of the father.
This is real if you are feeling convicted of sin in this moment, praise God, that’s the Holy spirit. Maybe you have been living in adultery, in substance abuse, an addiction that is wrecking your soul. If you feel convicted this morning, don’t turn from that. Lean into the pain, lean into the sorrow, knowing that God can restore all things, but it has to start with a repentant heart surrendered to God.
For others of us, we look real religious on the outside. We don’t currently have some blatant violation of the law of God in our lives. That may be true and praise God for that, but that can be the case and our hearts still be filled with hatred and lust. Are you consumed with an anger for revenge, have a long list of enemies, are you breaking promises and neglecting the people God has placed on your heart to love and serve.
Your prayer this morning is God change my heart, teach me to love you and my neighbor. Lord I have followed the rules but not your example. I am sorry.
I’d be remiss not to address here one of Jesus more radical statements.
Jesus says in verse 23, Matthew 5:23-24
So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Some of the repair God wants to do this morning is right in this room. Some of y’all have brothers and sisters in Christ, maybe even in this room, who God is saying if you claim to love me go and be reconciled to your brother or sister in Christ.
Here is the hard part of today… if you are a human, if you have a pulse, including myself, we all have something to lay at the feet of Jesus this morning.
We all have something to leave here with today because the truth is this passage is that Jesus means exactly what he say.
The question is, where is the Holy Spirit convicting you in this text. I want everyone to bow your head and close your eyes.
I want you to pray: father I don’t want to be merely a rule follower. I want a heart that is fully surrendered to you. God show me whats in the way…
Let’s take a moment to sit in that | 60 seconds
Now, I want you to bring that before the father. Lord, I have sinned against you, would you forgive me, and Lord would you give me a new heart.
Lets sit in that | 60-90 Seconds
Bryan starts I Surrender all/Worthy of it all. Jackson still on stage. People worship right where they are in a posture of surrender.
Jackson closes in prayer, walks off.
Chuck walks up right as Jackson says “Amen”
