Fulfilling the Law

Have you ever been on some kind of diet, or been trying to keep up a pattern of working out? Maybe you have tried to learn a new skill that takes a lot of practice, or you have been trying to watch your spending.

Usually, we can do okay with things like that for a while until something disrupts our schedule, our patterns, our habits…something like vacation.

Do you have that feeling that calories don’t count on vacation, or that you can just relax because the gym will still be there when you get back?

It can be hard to keep up a disciplined habit when we are out of our routine.

As we look at God’s word this morning, I want to start off by acknowledging that all of us are out of our normal routines right now.

Whether you are working harder than you ever have or you are being furloughed, or you can’t even run to the store without feeling like a fugitive, everyone is off their game.

At seasons like this, it can be hard to keep up our walk with God like we had before.

Among other things we will see this morning, our passage today is going to challenge us to keep living like God has called us to live, because his standards have not changed.

At the beginning of the year, we began diving into an extended series through the Sermon on the Mount.

We took a break over the last month or so, but this morning, we want to dive back into this incredible passage of Scripture, so go ahead and open your Bibles to Matthew 5:17-20.

I will be honest—I wrestled with whether or not we should come back to this portion of Scripture at this time, but as I prayed about it, I feel like it is time for us to keep moving forward with what God has been teaching us.

Although the challenges of our current situation are ongoing, we have taken several weeks and reflected on the fact that God is still God. We have looked to him for hope, we have pointed ourselves toward the cross and the empty tomb to see that he is in control, and we have a good understanding that God is still at work when everything is falling apart.

Having established that, we are going to look back to Matthew 5 this morning and keep learning how we are supposed to live as kingdom citizens.

By way of reminder or introduction for those who may not have been with us earlier this year, the Sermon on the Mount is recorded in Matthew 5-7. These chapters record for us a time when Jesus sat down with his disciples and a crowd of people from all walks of life to explain to them how those who were a part of his kingdom were supposed to live and act.

He began with a section called the Beatitudes, which showed us over and over again that the way of life that matters in God’s kingdom is often the opposite of what our world values.

He then reminded us that we are to impact the world around us as salt and light, preserving from the inside and challenging from the outside of society.

That was where we left off our study back in March.

Today, we are picking up with a section where Jesus is transitioning to a new topic.

He is getting ready to give a set of incredibly difficult commands, and in each one, he is telling those listening something new that was based off his authority as the son of God.

That may not sound like a big deal to us, but in those days, you didn’t come up with new ideas. You could only quote what another teacher had taught.

So, in rejecting what other teachers taught and giving new understanding to commands in the Bible they already knew, Jesus was going way out on a limb.

Before he does, he establishes what he is doing in this. As we will see, he isn’t throwing out the Old Testament; in fact, he is fulfilling it.

Read the passage with me, and then we will break it into two main parts...

Now, at first, this seems like a weird passage that is out of place and not very applicable to where we are today.

However, I see in it just the opposite, and I am praying you will too.

The first observation we can make is that...

1) Jesus came to fulfill the Law.

Look again at verses 17-18...

Before Jesus can dive into what he is actually saying, he has to establish this fact clearly: He is not doing away with the Law and the Prophets.

For us, that essentially means the Old Testament. The Law was given to Moses, and the Prophets is the remainder of the Old Testament.

The Law was that set of commands that God gave Israel that governed their judicial systems, their worship and sacrifices, and their understanding of their relationship to God.

What Jesus is saying is so radical that people are going to accuse him of just throwing out the whole thing.

However, he says the exact opposite. The Law isn’t going anywhere; in fact, Jesus says it will remain through the rest of time!

He said that even the smallest stroke of the smallest letter will remain.

If you know typefaces and fonts, that idea of “smallest stroke” is like the idea of the serif on the bottom of a letter…just the tiny little angled piece.

What Jesus was doing, then, to the law? He says in verse 17 that he was fulfilling it.

Jesus wasn’t doing away with the Law, and he wasn’t breaking it, he was bringing it to it’s fullest expression.

Scholars disagree some on exactly how to phrase it, but let’s think of it this way.

This isn’t the perfect way of thinking about it, but it is helpful: if we were to divide up God’s laws to his people, we might notice that they fell into several different categories.

Some laws expressed the moral commands of God, about what was right and wrong.

Some laws expressed the way the judicial system of Israel would work, with punishments, fines, and laws about restitution.

Other laws told the Israelites how they were to relate to God through ceremonies and sacrifices.

Hang in with me, because this is where this becomes really, really good.

You see, every part of the Law was pointing to what Jesus, the Messiah, God in the Flesh, would actually do for us.

Jesus fulfilled all three of these aspects of the Law.

He was perfect, never sinning once, so he carried out all the moral demands the Law made. In fact, he didn’t just obey the letter of the Law, he obeyed the spirit and intention behind it.

That meant that he didn’t deserve to come under any of the punishments the Law meted out for wrongdoing, but what did he do? He took the most severe punishment the Law could mete out, being put to death, and he did it for us!

Not only that, but he died in such a way that he was even cursed by the Law:

Galatians 3:13 CSB

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.

On the cross, Jesus took the curses that the Law meted out, even though he didn’t deserve it. He took the punishment that was meant for you and for me.

In doing that, Jesus also fulfilled all the ceremonies and all the sacrifices that the Law required:

1 John 2:2 CSB

He himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world.

Those gathered that day had no idea what Jesus would go through to fulfill the Law.

However, in his person and in his life and in his ministry, he was fulfilling all the demands of the Law in a way that none of us ever could.

What in the world does that mean to us, here in 2020, watching this service in our living rooms?

It means that Jesus has done what we couldn’t do, and he is worthy of all our praise and adoration and honor.

He was perfect, he was sinless, and yet he sacrificed himself for us.

We see why this is such a big deal when we move to the second part of this passage and see that…

2) Jesus calls us to live out the Law.

Read verses 19-20...

Wait a second, didn’t we just say that Jesus died in our place and he fulfilled all the Law required?

Then why is he still telling us to live it out?

Does that mean that we need to make all those sacrifices or handle justice like the Israelites did?

Those things haven’t passed away, but they were shadows that pointed us to the work of Christ.

However, God’s standards of right and wrong haven’t changed, which is what Jesus is going to point out in the rest of chapter 5.

What Jesus is doing here is addressing two different extremes we usually go to: lawlessness and legalism.

Lawlessness, sometimes called “antinomianism,” is the idea that the moral commands God gave us don’t matter anymore.

We hear this a lot in our day. Usually, you hear this from teachers who focus on the love of God but never talk about his righteousness.

God is absolutely love, and he is the embodiment of it. However, that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t have absolute standards of right and wrong.

In fact, his love requires that there be standards of right and wrong.

Some are tempted to hear that Jesus died for them, so they say, “Cool. I will trust Jesus, he paid for my sins, and now I can just do whatever I want because I am good with God.”

That’s what he is addressing in the first part of verse 19—the idea that the Law doesn’t matter and we can just throw out all that stuff.

Instead, the greatest kingdom citizens are not the ones who disregard God’s moral commands in the Bible, but instead the ones who learn it, live it, and lead others to do the same.

Do you want to be great in the kingdom of God? Then find out what God requires, do it, and teach others to do the same!

Then, in verse 20, he turns to dealing with the legalists.

That is what the scribes and the Pharisees were known for. They were religious leaders who were all about keeping the Law.

In fact, they had developed these elaborate systems of “hedges” around the Law that were extra laws that would keep them from breaking the actual Law.

As we just said, you should care about the doing what God commands, and doing the right thing, but be careful that it doesn’t turn into legalism.

We run into danger of this sometimes when we think about spiritual disciplines like prayer, Bible reading, and pointing other people to Jesus.

As we just acknowledged, we should do those things. So how do I know if I am being legalistic about it?

J.D. Greear says this,

“Legalism is either when you (a) feel closer to God when you do them, or (b) you put so much emphasis on developing the outward behavior that you neglect the inward change that only comes through faith in the gospel.” (J.D. Greear)[1]

That’s what Jesus is getting at here: the righteousness of the Pharisees was all about the external change.

That kind of change isn’t the righteousness that we hunger and thirst after as citizens of the kingdom.

The legalist’s righteousness is external and self-made. It is all about what they can do and how good they can be.

Instead, the righteousness we hunger after is the inward, God-given righteousness that comes from a heart that has been transformed.

So now, we see this come full circle.

Yes, you and I should have hearts that desire to do the right things God commands us to do and avoid the wrong things that we shouldn’t do.

But, we are still going to fail and fall short, so how can we have the righteousness that exceeds the scribes and Pharisees?

Because there is one who has already fulfilled the Law for us and clothes us in his righteousness.

You see, you and I could never enter into the kingdom of God based off our good works. We can’t be good enough!

If you have a question about that, fast forward to Matthew 5:48. The standard is perfection, and all of us fall short of that…except for Jesus!

He died, was buried, and rose from the dead to clothe you with his righteousness, so your entrance into the kingdom is based solely off Jesus!

It is only through Jesus that we can receive the inward righteousness that then compels us to honor God with the way we live, walking in obedience to his commands.

Have you trusted him for your righteousness, or are you still trying to make it on your own? You can’t, so surrender!

Now, if you are listening to me this morning, and you know you are saved, let me ask you: are you walking in obedience to God’s Law right now, today?

It’s true that you are in Christ, and you have been covered with his righteousness, but that reality should drive you and me to want to live a life honoring him, not just do whatever we want.

Your schedule, the demands on your time, your stress level, and all the ways you typically guarded against temptation have likely changed.

Are you just checking out and acting as if you are “on vacation” from God’s Law? His standard hasn’t changed, so keep living like you are a part of his kingdom. Keep loving others, even when you are scared about the future. Keep actively working in whatever ways God has called you to work and avoid laziness. Keep giving and avoid the trap of selfishness and materialism. Keep walking in purity and avoiding pornography and other traps that will catch you in times like this.

Look back over the Beatitudes we covered earlier this year in the first part of this chapter and see if those characterize how you are living right now.

If they don’t, ask God for the strength to make the adjustments you need to make, and then do it!

Fight to maintain that closeness to Christ if you are drifting in these days. You won’t regret it; in fact, Jesus says that is a mark of those who are great in the kingdom.

Maybe you are on the other side. All these changes have you on high alert, and you are living and acting like the fate of your world depends on you.

Perhaps you need to stop and remember that it is Jesus who is in charge. It is his righteousness that saved us, and it is his righteousness that sustains us.

Rest in the fact that Jesus sees, he knows, and he is in control. Cling to the cross as your hope, not your smarts or your good deeds or anything else. Your worth is in him.

As we go through the next several weeks, Jesus’ words are going to challenge us to walk according to the Law of God in difficult ways. May he prepare us this week to be ready for what is to come.

Endnotes:

[1] Greear, J.D. Gospel: Rediscovering the Power that Made Christianity Great. 199.