The Heart of the Matter Pt. 2

Introduction

Good morning Woodlands Church - for those of you here in person, and online - it’s good to be together. It’s good to be inside together, because my goodness. It’s cold - it’s been cold - it’ll be cold.

I did want to remind everyone - we are working through the book of Mark in our reading through Woodlands in the Word. And if you want another tool in your arsenal to help build a habit of daily Bible reading, you can actually text the word BIBLE to our number - 888-225-7675 - and you’ll get a daily text with a link to the Bible reading for that day. You can even adjust when in the day that text comes - so, the word is probably magically right here, and if that would be helpful, then do it!

We’re continuing in the sermon on the Mount, and last week Pastor Steve dove into, in Matthew 5, this challenge from Jesus - this concept that, really, we are not as free from sin as we might have thought. As Steve said, that Jesus wants to shine a light on the brokenness of our hearts” so that we can have a genuine relationship with him - not one based off of pretense or pretending like we have it together, but one of honesty and humility.

This week we’re continuing in Matthew 5, Jesus is going to give four more examples of ways that our hearts try to make ourselves out to be a bigger deals than we truly are. But I think, to an extent, the challenge is going to shift from, “We need to acknowledge our sin,” to, “We need to do a better job at living out truly righteous lives.”

And we’re going to cover a fair amount this morning, so let me start by giving you the big idea - the point of this whole sermon. Alright? It’s this:

Because we have a God of astounding, uncommon grace who invites us to live out His Kingdom values, we must run towards righteousness and push the boundaries of gracious living every chance we get.

Let me say that again, and it’s in your notes.

Let’s pause and pray.

Our God of Uncommon Grace

So, we have a large chunk of text for today - if you just skim it, starting in verse 31, you’ll see Jesus is going to talk about divorce, and oaths - he’ll talk about graciousness, and then love for enemies. And we are going to at least fly over all of it, but I think in order to understand it, we need to need to start at the end and work backwards. So open your Bibles - I’m in the ESV translation, and let’s reread the passage which was read earlier in the service - Matthew 5:43-45. I think if we take these verses apart a bit, we’ll better understand the rest.

Matthew 5:43–45 ESV

“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 that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

I think this is the keystone passage here in chapter 5, relating to all of those other sections. And we’re going to see - in this passage - that there’s three distinct sctions, and if we can follow these section, we’ll follow Jesus’ reasoning and better understand what he’s saying.

The first part is really what we should do - the indicative - do this. Here it’s verse 43&44, but it also includes the section on divorce and oaths and retalitation. This is how you’re to live, Jesus says!

The second section then is the first half of verse 45 - so that you may be sons of your father in heaven. Jesus is saying, “This is th result of living in this way.”

And then the third section is this statement about who God is - linked with the word, “For… for God makes his son to rise.” So the argument, backwards, in the passage is, “Because of who God is - section three - if we want to be participants in His Kingdom - section two - we should live this way - section 1. Make sense?

Ok, so let’s unpack each of these sections, then, starting with the third.

God Freely Offers Uncommon Grace

And to do that, we need to start with the movie Bruce Almighty. Do you remember that? Jim Carey is given God’s role for like a week to see if he could do a better job? I think about that concept often.

Well, imagine that happens - but not to you, but to a really good friend of yours - the type of person you speak with honestly, like gut level honesty with. And they text you, “Hey, I’m going to do God’s job for a week,” and you got together with them after 5 days in their new role as sovereign over the universe, and you were sitting down with them for some coffee, and you ask how it’s going.

And they said, “Y’know, it’s good. Every day I do certain things - I make the sun rise, I make the rain fall. I oversee the stock market, and the job situation in the world - really. The global food supply. And I guess I’ve been really amazed both at some of the amazing people who benefit from the sun rising every day, and I’ve also seen some pretty terrible people who benefit from the stock market going up, or from crops growing over here. But I keep it up. I’m faithful there too.”

What would your response be? I’d expect I’d say, “Waitwaitwait! Hold up. You’re in charge, and you see terrible people benefiting from what you’re doing? The why are you still doing it?” And I imagine the more that I would process that - that my friend’s active management of the world was still benefitting murderers, genocidal world leaders, sexual abusers, people in power using that power to oppress, or enslaves, or to tear down?

I would really struggle with that. I would call my friend out. I would probably get in his face. I very likely might storm out if he continued to defend that...

And yet here in Matthew 5 we see Jesus rejoicing in the fact that God himself operates in a similar way. That, in fact, one day in the not too distant future after Jesus said this, God was going to cause his sun to rise on Jesus, and Jesus’ betrayers, and Jesus’ executioners, equally.

What do we do with this?

Well, it touches on a theological idea called God’s ‘common grace’ - or his goodness that is availble for all people, regardless of their status within His Kingdom. God’s common grace has a number of components - but let’s touch on three.

One, God positively causing good and natural things to happen for all people.It’s the growing of crops, or the gift of breath. And oxygen. It’s even more detailed than that - Colossians 1 says that in Christ all things actively hold together. God’s common grace includes the strong and weak nuclear forces that hold molecules together. It includes regulating gravity and maintaining the existence of solar system.

But God’s common grace is also seen in Scripture as the restraint of evil - God does actively restrain Satan in situations across the world. There’s a great example in Genesis 20 when God speaks to a foreign king - Abelimelech - and says, “I was I who kept you from sinning.” He restrains evil so that it’s not as prevalent as it could be.

But then the third way, and this is so important, is that God’s common grace includes delaying judgement on the world - not ignoring judgement, but delaying it. Why? Paul says in Romans 2 that God delays judgement out of kindness - grace - so that those who are far from Him would have the opportunity to repent and turn towards Him.

So God’s common grace is different from God’s saving grace which he offers to those of us who accept it - who choose to follow him - forgiveness from sins and inclusion in this Kingdom - that’s saving grace. But to all people God offers common grace.

God’s common grace is immense - just trying to wrap our heads around the things that God actively maintains and gives and does for all people - regardless of whether they’re following him or not - trying to wrap our heads around God’s common grace is bonkers.

Honestly, it feels unjust. It feels unfair. It feels a little, ungood. But it’s none of those things. It’s the opposite, really. It is both just and fair, because God’s common grace is rooted in His salvation plan - it’s rooted in the assurance of justice and righteousness. It’s rooted, as Peter points out in 2 Peter 3, that the day of the Lord will come, and the “earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.” It is just.

But it’s also just quite frankly rooted in who God is. It’s so gracious, it’s so God, that instead of common grace, I like to refer to it as ‘uncommon grace.’ Perhaps unexpected. Uncomfortable. Uncommon. But it’s God’s grace.

God Invites Us to Live as Inheritors

And so that’s that third sectino. And it’s this God - who has immense, immeasurable, confident, uncomfortable common grace that he offers - it’s this God who invites us into His Kingdom to be participants with Him.

And this leads us backwards in verse 45 - the beginning part - we’re to live this way - 5:21-44 - so that we may be sons of our Father who is in Heaven.

There’s at least two things to pay attention to in this phrase - one is the word sons. Some translations are going to loosen up the Greek and translate it children - that’s ok because this is not a gender restricted word. But it does create tensions in this passage, in particular, because the sons is not just talking about ‘children’ - but rather inheritors. And in the culture into which Jesus was speaking, it was the sons who recieved the inheritance - all that was there their fathers was passed on to them.

And so Jesus says, “We live in this way,” so that we can inherit the good, glorious Kingdom of Heaven - we can fully participate in it, we can fully enjoy it, we can fully live in light of it. And what is it? It’s a Kingdom overflowing with uncommon, common grace. With goodness and mercy and justice and kindness and love.

We can be inheritors of it - that’s the first thing to pay attention to.

But the second is that the sense - the timing - is hard to read in this translation. It says, "so that you may be” - is this talking about something future, or something now, current? Like when does this take place?

And it’s actually purposefully ambiguous, even in the original Greek. Jesus, I think, is saying - to the question is this now, or later? He’s say, “Yes.”

On the one hand, we live out these Kingdom characteristics because we know that one day, in the future, God’s Kingdom will be fully and firmly established on earth and we will live entirely within his good grace and his perfect rule. Justice will overflow, righteousness will be commonplace, and the law will be written on deep within our hearts and eagerly lived out. One day.

And y’know - this is also why - don’t miss this - God is so free to be so gracious. He knows perfectly that in the end - all things will be right. All wrongs will be judged, all unrighteousness accounted for, all injustice rectified. And if that’s the case then, He, and we, can be gracious now. This isn’t a case of “the ends justify the means.” This is a case of, “Because we have confidence in God’s assured victory tomorrow, we are free to live out the Kingdom values of grace and mercy and kindness and love today, unconcerned with how they might be recieved.” So yes, this looks forward.

But it also refers to now. Yes, we inherit the future hope of the perfect Kingdom, but we’re also called, as inheritors, to live out that call today. This is not just a future call - it’s also a present call.

So, back to the overview - we have the third section - who our God is - and we have the second area - we’re to inherit God’s kingdom. And so this leads us to our first section - how we’re to live.

Our Call to Uncommon Grace

This is our call to uncommon grace. Jesus touches on four areas. The first two, our intimate, personal relationships: our marriages, and divorce, and then the way that we speak - or don’t speak - truth, are both profound. And I would love to spend time on them, but we just don’t have it. So we’ll need to skip to verse 38.

Radical Sacrifice

And then in verses 38-42, Jesus says we should be willing to be wronged. That we should show this level of grace towards others (verse 40- 41). That sounds crazy! And honestly, these are some of the verses that generate the greatest amount of biblical gymnastics - everyone wants these words to mean anything other than, “if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.” These verses generate a whole of, “um, actuallies.” “Um, actually, Jesus meant that if you did something wrong, and were sued, then you should listen.” “Um, actually, in that culture...”

But I think we’re entirely missing the point. Jesus - just 10 verses earlier, said that if our eye causes us to sin, it would be better for us to gouge it out than to allow it to continue. His point is that we’re far too lenient in our approach to sin.

I think here, in these verses, Jesus’ point is that we’re far too lenient in our approach to righteousness. We’re far too quick to say, “well, this is the boundary of how gracious I’m willing to be. This is the line I won’t cross.” If my friend asks me to borrow a tool, I guess I’ll loan it to him, but if he doesn’t return it again, I won’t do it again. There’s a line - I just created a line around my graciousness.

And Jesus says, “No!” How about this for a line: if some jerk sues you for your jacket, give it to him, and your cloak! Don’t worry about it.” And then Jesus walks off and demonstrates where his line is, by dying on the cross for those who are actively mocking him.

Jesus’ point isn’t “Here, dissect this verse so that it fits within what you’re comfortable with.” Jesus point is, “We don’t run towards righteousness nearly enough.”

Radical Love

And that leads us back to where we started - this radical call to love in 43-45. Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.

You know, this has been a season - for various reasons - of drawing lines in the sand to separate us from them. Perhaps like no season before has it be easier to divide into camps of right and wrong, or friend and foe.

In my life, by God’s grace, I have not had many enemies. But I have also said, at different points and publically, that there is perhaps no more freeing Christian sense that when someone can clearly be called an enemy. Because quite frankly, the Bible is a little mum on how to respond to someone who’s just a little annoying. Or frustrating. Or someone we just a little disagree with.

But an enemy? The Bible’s super clear - Jesus is super clear. When I say, “your enemy?” who is is that comes to mind? Hold that person - or that group - in your mind. Now this: Jesus command is to actively, demonstratively love them. This is not a lip service love. This is not a Christianese love. This is the type of love that would pray, “Father, forgive them,” while they nailed you to a cross - this is love that has been demonstrated.

Love them.

C.S. Lewis boiled it down like this in Mere Christianity:

The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste your time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.… The difference between a Christian and worldly man is not that the worldly man has only affections or “likings” and the Christian has only “charity.” The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he “likes” them; the Christian, trying to treat every one kindly, finds himself liking more and more people as he goes on—including people he could not even have imagined himself liking at the beginning.

Love them. It’s not an ‘if’ they do this - it’s not a ‘when’ they do that. Love your enemies. Why? So that you can inheritors of the Kingdom of the God of uncommon grace.

A Challenge for Uncommon Grace

So, back to the big idea. I said it at the beginning, “Because we have a God of astounding, uncommon grace who invites us to live out His Kingdom values, we must run towards righteousness and push the boundaries of gracious living every chance we get.”

Another quote from Lewis. He was accused, according to pastor Kent Hughes, of not liking the sermon on the mount, back in 1958. Lewis responded by saying,

As to “caring for” the Sermon on the Mount, if “caring for” here means “liking” or enjoying, I suppose no one “cares for” it. Who can like being knocked flat on his face by a sledge hammer? I can hardly imagine a more deadly spiritual condition than that of a man who can read that passage with tranquil pleasure.

There should be something about the sermon on the mount that disquiets our hearts because we are coming face to face with a picture of Kingdom people - and one of main takeaways needs to be, “I’m not there yet.”

And that’s humility. And ultimately, it’s what leads to being “poor in Spirit” from the beginning of the sermon - our humble acknowledgment of our shortcomings - whether it’s in regards to sin, like we saw last week, or righteousness, like this week - our knowledge of our shortcomings will lead to deeper dependance on God and greater faithfulness to what he calls us to.

So we’ll end with this. This week, in Woodlands in the Word in Mark 8, Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” They had accounted for what other people said, but his question to them was personal. Who do you say that I am?

What’s your answer? Who do you say that Jesus is? Is he just a teacher, or a historical figure? Then start reading the gospels, and get to know him more. Is he a friend, or a cheerleader? Again, read the gospels. Join us!

But when you come to the place of being able to say, like Peter, “He is the Christ.” That is, he is the one to save me - he is the one to be my Lord… when you can say that, then you can choose to live each day seeking to push the boundaries of rightesouss, gracious living, as an inhertor of the Kingdom of our God of uncommon grace.

Let’s pray.