Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
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10,000 Reasons
WELCOME
Good morning family!
Hear the Word of the Lord...
Psalm 103:1-4—“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,”
“Of course God loves me like that!
I’m pretty great!” (iniquity, diseases, pit)
We gather to remember who God is, but also to remember who we are.
And apart from His mercy and grace we deserve nothing good from Him.
But He gives it to us in endless measure anyways!
In just a moment we’ll hear a reading from the text for today’s sermon in Matthew 5:38-42.
Turn there now.
While you’re turning, 2 quick announcements:
1) A word about PBC.
We are Missionaries.
We will labor to reach our neighbors and the nations with the Gospel.
Sometimes that means working together to get to know our neighbors so we have opportunities to tell them about Jesus
Sometimes that means partnering with other ministries that are commited to gospel ministry
Let me tell you about three opportunities this spring to be on mission in our community and beyond...
(and yes, even an announcement can have sub-points)
1) Baby Bottle Campaign (bottles due March 13)
2) Walk 4 Life (April 30)
3) PBC Easter Egg Hunt Outreach (April 9)
2) TableTalk—“One Another” teaching series
55x the NT commands Christians to relate to “one another” in specific ways
The most popular command is to “love one another,” but there’s 27 different “one another” commands that relate to life in the local church
These commands teach us how we’re supposed to live life together as the people of God
And we’re going to begin studying them one-by-one, starting tonight at 5PM
Sterling Tollison teaching
Come for the conversation, stay for the fellowship.
Now look in your Bibles at Matthew 5:38 as Kelly Watkins comes to read for us.
Scripture Reading (Matthew 5:38-42)
Prayer of Praise (God is good)
Blessed Assurance
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Prayer of Confession (Worldliness), Eli Dowell
What A Beautiful Name
PBC CATECHISM #9
What do we believe about humanity?
We believe God created people in His own image as uniquely male and female.
PASTORAL PRAYER (John Rogers)
SERMON
Michelangelo (the Renaissance artist, not the Ninja Turtle) is praised by many as one of the greatest artists of all time.
At a mere 26 years old, he accepted a commission to create his most famous work, the Statue of David.
SHOW STATUE OF DAVID IMAGE
He began carving the massive block of white marble on September 13, 1501 and would not finish until January 25, 1504.
Upon completion, the statue measured at 17 feet tall and over 12,000 pounds.
Today the statue is visited by over 1.2 million people every single year.
An old legend suggests that Pope Alexander once asked Michelangelo the secret of his genius.
Michelangelo allegedly responded, “It’s simple.
I just remove everything that is not David.”
In some ways Jesus’ words in our passage this morning are like Michelangelo’s Statue of David.
Jesus’ words here are beautiful, massive, and intimidating.
They’re also incredibly popular, and have influenced massive historical figures like Leo Tolstoy, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and many more.
But like Michelangelo's massive slab of marble, the true meaning of this passage is often shrouded by misunderstanding.
So with God’s help, we’ll carve away everything that is not what Jesus intended so we can see the beauty and the glory of His words for us today.
Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 5:38
Jesus is preaching a sermon to His disciples about how to live rightly as citizens of the kingdom of heaven
He’s contrasting kingdom righteousness with the righteousness of the religious teachers
“You have heard that, but I say to you this”
1) vv.
21-26, Jesus looks beyond the prohibition of murder to the anger that drives it
2) vv.
27-30, Jesus looks beyond the prohibition of adultery to the lust that precedes it
3) vv.
31-32, Jesus looks beyond provisions for divorce to the Creator’s intent for marriage
4) vv.
33-37, Jesus looks beyond the common thinking about swearing oaths to God’s desire for His people to be truthful
Today: Jesus looks beyond the law’s teaching about justice in the community to how God’s people should respond when personally mistreated
But before we can understand how God’s people should respond when mistreated, we need to carve away everything that is not what Jesus intended when He uttered these famous words almost 2000 years ago.
Matthew 5:38-42—“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.
And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.”
Let’s carve away 4 Incorrect Interpretations of these words, and then we’ll explain what Jesus does mean and apply it to our lives today.
Jesus is Not Contradicting the LAW
5:38-39a—“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....”
The law Jesus references here is sometimes called the lex talionis, a Latin phrase meaning “the law of retaliation”
This time Jesus is quoting an concept that is repeated several times in the Mosaic law
Exodus 21:24
Deuteronomy 19:21
Leviticus 24:19-20—“If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him.”
Both Gandhi and MLK rejected the logic of the law of Moses here when they said, “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."
Is that what Jesus is doing?
Is He rejecting or contradicting the law?
The lex talionis was about the legal system for a nation.
These were laws intended to ensure that the civil punishment fit the crime.
Contrast with the Code of Hammurabi, written before the law of Moses, which threatened different penalties for injuring a person depending on your social and economic status...
If a free man struck another free man, he paid a fine.
But if a slave struck a free man his ear would be cut off.
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The lex talionis was grace for a nation.
The punishment given in a court of law should fit the crime.
That was the point of these laws.
But once again the Pharisees and religious elites had taken what God intended and twisted it.
They had taken a set of laws that were intended for the law courts and extended them to personal relationships.
This is vigilante justice.
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