The Law and the Difference it makes

The technicality

I love a good old technicality to try and get yourself out of trouble.

You could imagine a scenario. My wife puts a load of washing on, and I’ll helpfully agree to hang it out once the cycle is complete.

Of course, times goes on. My mind goes on other things. My wife gets home from work and the washing is still in the machine - this is hypothetical of course (I’m sure you will all struggle to believe I would actually be so incompetent).

My wife may then say: why is the washing still in the machine - didn’t you agree to hang it out...

…and this is where my technicalities come in. Well, yes, I did agree to hang out the washing, but I didn’t specify which load I was talking about… and I didn’t say when I would hang it out. Look, I’m just about to do it now.

Who here thinks that’s going to get them out of trouble?

Well, it was worth a try...

The thing is, we can sometimes convince ourselves that that technicality really does get us off the hook. If we search hard enough, we’ll always find a good technicality, and if we do that enough… guess what? we can actually convince ourselves we’re good people.

And so we think we can stand before God, ready to prove with a bunch of technicalities that actually, we’re good enough for him.

I reckon I could give it a good hot go. I just need to highlight all of my good qualities... and all of my failings, well, I can find some pretty good excuses.

After all, when I got angry just before - that was because I was tired and stressed. That moment of lust, well, that was the woman’s fault - she was being provocative. When I was fudging the numbers on my tax, well, it was actually very minor, and besides, I was under reporting elsewhere, so it all evens out in the end.

You see, we can strike all those things off the list because really, everyone knows that I’m a decent bloke.

You see, it’s actually not that hard to find a few good technicalities and get let off.

Or so we think.

Our blindspot

Now last week, as I started this series on the Sermon on the Mount, I’ve started to introduce this idea that if we want to make a difference, then we need to be different but different in a way that reflects Jesus.

But now it’s easy, whether it’s that sermon from last week, or any other sermon, to put ourselves in that position where things work out pretty good for us.

And at times, that might be appropriate. After all, if you’re facing a tough time, you might just need to hear the message that God loves you in whatever situation you find yourself in.

But you need to be careful. Because that comfort which is good for the hurting soul to hear, can easily become a justification of whatever you’re doing. And it’s such an easy trap to fall into. We often have a tendency to hear what we want to hear.

But the problem that occurs when we do this, is that we miss the picture of what Jesus wants for us. Because we think we’ve found all the loop holes and hence justified ourselves, we think we’re already that different person who’s about to make a difference to the world around them.

A blind spot has formed.

The Pharisee blindspot

This is in fact the problem that was apparent in a particular group of Jewish people in Jesus’ day. That group of course was the Pharisees. And before we get to a ole’ Pharisee bashing, it’s perhaps worth reflecting that the modern evangelical is often not all that different to the Pharisee. Sure we’ve updated our language so as not to appear as a Pharisee, but in someways, this is just another technicality that we’ve added to pretend we’re different.

Okay, so let’s have a look at how the Pharisees approached this matter.

The Pharisees were known for the observance of God’s laws. Now that in itself should not be something to criticise them about. In fact, I think that sometimes we’re actually a bit quick to criticize when actually, this has actually come from good intentions.

But there is a reason that they became the focus of the criticism. You see, in their zeal to follow God’s law, they systematized it to the point that they had hundreds of rules specifying exactly what they can and can’t do.

Again, I think there were good intentions behind this, but in their attempt to take away any grey areas, they actually started to miss the point. In fact, they start to open up unintended gaps, which Jesus is about to expose for us.

Sermon on the Mount

Which brings us to our passage this morning.

This Sermon on the Mount started with the beatitudes which we looked at last week. It then has a section on being the salt and light of the world - I actually jumped over that because I did a message on that back in January this year.

But in verse 17, it’s like Jesus has a new idea he wants to get across. Essentially it is to consider the relationship between what he’s going on about, and God’s law.

Perhaps he’s addressing a concern given that what he’s saying represents such a big shift from their normal way of thinking that maybe he’s going to change everything.

If this is the way they were thinking, Jesus quickly puts their minds at ease - “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law of the Prophets”.

Well, that’s good… but Jesus adds to the statement. “I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them”.

Now what does that mean? I dare say the original hearers probably were a little baffled as well. What does it mean to fulfil the law?

Well, let’s keep going and see if we can figure it out...

Verse 18 has Jesus doubling down on his claim that he is not abolishing the law - not even the smallest letter or the least stroke of a pen. Jesus is serious when he says that he’s not changing it.

And Jesus has some pretty stern words for those who think they might like to tinker with the laws. If you try to set aside the least of them, you’ll be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but if you practice them, you’ll be called great.

The Law

Now let’s just hit pause a moment and break this down a bit.

First of all, what law are we talking about?

In very basic terms, we’re talking about what God says in the Old Testament.

We’re all familiar with the Ten Commandments. But it is more than just this. There are lots of different rules and the like that are handed down from God to his people.

And to our ears, some of them are very strange indeed.

Lev 19:19 for example tells us not to plant in your field two kinds of seed, and not to wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.

I dare say we’ve all broken those.

But there are some laws that seemingly the New Testament teaching does contradict from the Old.

Circumcision being a big one. The Old Testament taught that for God’s chosen people, males needed to be circumcised. The New Testament clearly teaches that you can be part of God’s chosen people and not circumcised.

Or the various food laws throughout the Old Testament. The New Testament teaches that all food are declared clean.

So isn’t this a change?

Well we could go through each one and look at how to explain each of the apparent change, but Jesus actually gave us the basic key to unlocking this in what he said in our passage for this morning.

You see, remember he said that he didn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfil it.

Now, there is a lot in this concept of Jesus fulfilling the law, but I’m really only going to scratch the surface of it now.

You see, in very broad terms, we could consider the idea of all the laws about sacrifices are fulfilled in Jesus being our sacrifice. All the laws around the temple are fulfilled in Jesus as he is our temple. (And I do recognise that they are quite big concepts that I have just thrown out there with the briefest of mentions).

But in other ways (which we’ll explore more now), we’ll see that Jesus fulfill the law by teaching us a bigger picture of what the laws were always meant to point us to.

You see, the reality is, as Jesus acknowledges elsewhere, all of the laws are just the application of the two basic laws, that is, Love God… and Love Others.

And so it follows that we shouldn’t just stop at the stated application, we should follow it through to the full extent.

This is what the Pharisees didn’t fully grasp. They had unwittingly reduced God’s laws to the application without understanding the bigger purpose.

And that’s why in verse 20 Jesus says that your righteousness shouldn’t just equal that of the Pharisees, it should surpass it. Their rules are limited. We need to aim higher. We need to see what’s really behind them.

How can we surpass the Pharisees

Now, we can’t go past this verse without considering the fact that what Jesus just said is impossible. You see, even though the Pharisees had limited the law, it was already effectively unmanageable. But going above this - well, that’s impossible. So isn’t Jesus ruling everyone out with this comment?

Well, he would be, except for the fact of the gospel. That is, because of what Jesus has done for us, his righteousness is imparted to us. In other words, we can be counted righteous because of Jesus.

And so, even though what I’m about to explore is going to move us in to the realm of the impossible, but don’t lose hope. Your salvation is based on Jesus. But we still should be aiming for this, because with the help of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we can actually make moves in the right direction.

The fuller law

Okay then, what follows is Jesus giving us six examples of laws and how people have limited them.

Given time restraints, I’m only going to touch on each of them, but it should be clear that each of them could be explored in much more depth.

Murder

The first law initially comes across as a fairly basic one - do not murder.

Stated like that, I’m pretty confident we could all tick that box. As far as I’m aware, no one here has ever murdered another human being.

But what’s the fuller picture behind this one? Well, yes taking another life is wrong, but if this is an application of loving everyone, then behind this law is a more basic idea - don’t even get angry at someone.

Jesus essentially equate getting angry with someone with murdering them.

Suddenly that idea that we’ve never murdered, well, maybe we were a bit quick.

Adultery

Jesus then does something very similar with adultery. Now, I don’t know, maybe there are people here who might have committed adultery, but many of us, maybe even all, could say with confidence that we haven’t committed adultery in the traditional way of understanding adultery.

But there is a fuller picture behind this one. The act itself is a gross violation, but behind this action is lust. And so we find Jesus essentially equating lust with adultery.

In both these examples, Jesus is telling us that if we just focus on the specifics, we miss the bigger issue of what is going n.

Divorce

The next one is a tricky issue which we could spend a long time on. Jesus raises the issue of divorce.

Now to understand this section, we really need to understand a debate that was raging at this time. There were two broad schools of thought. One group was arguing that essentially a husband could divorce his wife for any reason, but only as long as he followed the right procedure - that is, with a certificate of divorce. The other school of thought strictly limited the reasons. And so Jesus is diving head first into a very controversial topic here.

Jesus says there is only one reason - and that is sexual immorality.

Now let me pause here and recognise that this is a very sensitive topic, one that if dealt with in an overly simplistic fashion, can cause a lot of hurt.

These words of Jesus have unfortunately been used to beat people over the head to force them to stay in abusive relationships.

The sad thing is, the big idea behind this passage is that Jesus is trying to fight against a legalistic view that misses the big picture - the big picture of love.

So why does Jesus only give one exception for divorce, and it doesn’t include abuse?

Well, we need to acknowledge the positive side of what Jesus is trying to do here. Jesus is trying to put the value back into marriage. When you get married, you are making a vow before God. This is not something you take lightly.

When you get married, you become one flesh. This is a big deal and it is an absolutely beautiful thing.

The debate people were having was missing the point. By making this legalistic, we introduce technicalities. I think Jesus is trying to say, stop with the technicalities and start treating this with the high esteem that it deserves.

So let me say this. When someone leaves a marriage because of abuse - that is sad, but the sadness came when the abuser already broke the bond of love. You see, when we start to see the bigger picture, we can avoid the same trap of legalism that the Pharisees found themselves in.

I do recognise that I’m only just scratching the surface of the issue, so feel free to talk to me more if you want to discuss it further.

Oaths

The fourth example Jesus gives is that of oaths.

To understand this little section, we need to understand what was being taught at the time. People were being taught that oaths were only really binding if they used specific formula of words. If you don’t get the words right, then what you say isn’t binding.

What have we got here? We’ve got ourselves a little technicality.

I remember when I was a child, we used to hold that if you crossed your finger when you said something, then it wasn’t true. It was great, because you could tell someone you would do something, but because your fingers were crossed, you didn’t have to do it.

It was childish and it was stupid.

But what the Pharisees were doing was just as childish and just as stupid.

What Jesus is saying here is stop with this stupid idea that something is more binding if you swear by heaven or earth.

Simply let your yes be yes, and your no be no. It’s actually not that hard.

Mind you, as with divorce, don’t turn this into another legalistic landmine. If you, for instance, need to testify in court and you swear by the Bible - you’re not sinning. Jesus isn’t trying to make things more complicated. He’s rather trying to show us the better way. A way that points to how God intends things. Where you say what you mean, and you mean what you say.

It’s not that hard!

Loving your enemies

That might not be hard (at least in theory), but the last two examples Jesus gives - well, this is where things do start to get difficult for us.

The fifth example Jesus gives is of the Old Testament idea of an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.

That Old Testament concept is a good one, because it can allow for revenge.

The only problem, it wasn’t intended to be for revenge. Rather it was a principle of justice. In the justice system, the punishment should not exceed that of the crime.

But applied to love, well, on a personal level, we need to take a different approach.

This is where we get the concept of turning the other cheek.

This is not easy - and Jesus isn’t telling us we all need to become doormats and let everyone walk all over us. The real concept for us to grasp is that love should trump revenge.

Which brings us to the last of the examples. Jesus says: “You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbour and hate your enemy”.

But Jesus flips this over - because love is different. The love that Jesus has, this is one where you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

This is not easy, but this is what the law is pointing us towards.

Conclusion

There is obviously so much in all of this and I really am just glossing over it very quickly.

But the main point I want to make today is that God’s law is not there for us to become all legalistic about.

The law is good, but it’s good when it’s understood what it’s all about. And if you want to know what it’s all about - then really you need to just look at Jesus.

He truly is the fulfillment of the law.

All of this discussion needs to be held with understanding that our righteousness is actually the righteousness of Christ imparted to us.

When Jesus concludes in verse 48 “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”. That is obviously not obtainable in our own strength. But with the Spirit with us, we can actually move in the direction that we need to.

And that’s the point I want to make today. Understanding what the law is actually about, that is, as understood through Jesus, we actually can see the difference that we should be making. If we let the law be our guide, then we’re going to be the salt and light of this world.

But when we spend too much time trying to find the loop holes - well that is when we miss the point. This is not about legalism. This is about loving God and loving others.

With God’s help, we can actually do this and really make a difference.

Let me pray...