Sunday Sermon Matthew 5:17-20

Church, Israel was absolutely amazing and invigorating as well. The Word says in Hebrews 4:12 that the Word of God is living and I definitely believe that!

But now it seems to be more living than it was when I left and I think it is because we walked where Jesus walked and experienced the culture he came from and visited the many places where he ministered, even where he preached the Sermon on the Mount.

It was clear to us why Jesus picked Capernaum as his headquarters and how is ministry evolved.

Everywhere from the Red Sea, to the Dead Sea, to the Mediterranean Sea where Caesarea is and Herod built one of his amazing palaces, to the Sea of Galilee and the Galilee region where OUR Lord did a mighty work.

Our favorite place was Old Jerusalem with in the walls of the city.

There is no Walmart in Israel, not large stores, but open air markets.

Well, I need to stop here and not take away from our time in the Word, because the inspired Word of God will not and cannot return void.

So, let’s open our Bibles to Matthew 5:17-20 where we left off and pick up here:

READ MATTHEW 5:17-20

Matthew 5:17–20 NKJV

“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

PRAYER

Lord Heavenly Father, we praise you and thank you for this day and for all the days of our lives and for all the gifts, graces, and blessings that you have so generously given to each and every one of us abundantly that we are not deserving of. Lord you are so gracious and loving that it rains of the just and the unjust and this Lord is hard for us to fathom, but it is who you are. God, we ask that you would continue to comfort and give strength to Franca and her family and friends, that you would comfort as as well. God we thank you for Craig’s life and the man, husband, father, and friend that he became. Please Lord grant this same comfort and strength to the Scroggin family and send your Spirit now to lead, guide, and direct us into all truth. After today, may we have a balanced view of Law and Grace and may we walk away with nuggets to practically apply into our lives and may our privates lives, match our public lives for now and forever...

IN JESUS NAME, WE LOVE YOU! AMEN

REVIEW

In looking back, we know that when Jesus showed up on the scene that he came into a religious and politically charged culture, that had fallen from grace and exalted the 613 traditions that the Pharisees and Scribes developed over God’s Word or you could say Law if you wanted.

And they did this, because not matter how hard they tried to keep the Law, they fell short, just like you and I.

Therefore, they created these traditions that enabled them to be meritorious and feel like they were right with God because they measured up to the standard that they laid down, but the sad thing was they were not. They had confused the people and neglected the weightier matters of the law.

And what is real sad was they were absolutely convinced because the were of Abrahams lineage, they they were assured a spot in heaven, they were convinced because of keeping with their traditions, that they were walking with the Lord.

And truth be told, there are many today in 2022, that believe this same thing. If I go to church and keep the traditions of my predecessors then I am good, I am in.

So when Jesus showed up, He said Repent, for the Kingdom of God is here!

And multitudes flocked to Him and John, because of the guilt they felt form their sin and Jesus laid out the beatitudes a remedy for kingdom living.

He gave us principles on how to be his disciple which is personal that leads to public, and then the last time we met, he gave us principles on how we influence the culture around us.

Jesus said for us to be salt and light church, salt and light, not pepper and darkness.

He even said that a city set on a hill cannot be hidden and the reason he said this is because all over Israel and even in Jordan, the cities are all built on hills and not in the valleys like here.

So Jesus was preaching a radical message of repentance and transformation church, one that they had not heard before because for the religious folks of His day, everything was external, and when Jesus came, he shifted gears to the internal or the the heart.

And then in our text today, he begins to deal with the the Law, but before we go there, I want to share a sad illustration:

In her autobiography, My Life, former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir tells the story of her devout Jewish grandfather who lived in Russia. He was required to serve in the Russian army for sixteen years. During that time he tried to keep every Jewish law and custom even though it meant that he faced intense persecution—even being forced to kneel on a stone floor for hours.

When he was released, he feared that he may have somehow broken the Law and for the rest of his life he slept on a stone floor using a stone for his pillow to try to makeup for any sin he may have accidentally committed.

It is tragic that he went to such lengths to pay for his sin when Jesus has provided the atonement.

Matthew 5:17 NKJV

“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.

Church, we live in a day and age in which the law of God is not loved or honored or regarded as it should be by man.

That probably doesn't come as a great surprise though; because almost every age of human history has been an age in which the law of God was not loved or honored or regarded as it should have been.

But what is, perhaps, unusual about our time is that there are so many today who profess a faith in Jesus Christ, and yet believe that the law of God is something that - for this present age - is to be set aside.

The formal name for this belief is "antinomianism".

"Nomos" is the Greek word for "law"; and so, to be "antinomian" simply means to be "against law", and to hold that the believer is no longer under obligation to preach or obey God's Old Testament law.

This very erroneous belief has made its way into the church at many points in its history.

One notable occasion was through the early church heretic Marcion. His followers even went so far as to alter Jesus' words to say, "Do not think that I came to fulfill the law, but rather to destroy it."

We even hear it today, when people say, "I'm sure glad that I live in the age of grace!" (which of course, is a true statement); but then go on to say, "And I'm glad that I have nothing further to do with the Old Testament law!" (which is an expression of an antinomian spirit).

While it's true that we are indeed set free from the "curse" of the law for our having failed to keep it, we are not set free from its standard of holiness.

John the beloved wrote:

1 John 5:2–3 NKJV

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.

The Pharisees made God’s commandments burdensome by adding their traditions church or their own sanctions if you may.

Mark 7:7–9 NKJV

And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.” He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.

It is clear in our text, that Jesus was reading the hearts of those who were listening and specifically the religious leaders of the day.

There were some Rabbis that taught that the OT law would be done away with, when the New Covenant would come and they built this theology from:

Jeremiah 31:31–34 NKJV

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

Did you notice that God did not say anything here about getting rid of the OT law?

Church, here Jesus is referring to the commandments of God that he has given to his people to regulate their whole lives, morally, religiously, socially, and politically or judicially.

What is law?

The first 5 books of the OT are known as the law, that is distinctive from the prophets. Jesus said it this way:

Luke 16:16 NKJV

“The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it.

There are many of us that are confused about grace and law, so over the next few weeks, we are going to tabernacle here, we are going to slow down the plow so we can walk away with a balanced view of grace and law, and not be confused about this issue anymore.

How does this sound?

Church, when we don’t understand something in God’s Word it says:

2 Timothy 2:15 NKJV

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Rightly dividing is a carpenter term that means to cut a straight line.

This is why we go through the Bible one verse at a time, so we can grasp difficult truths and expose the lies that others have taught us or that we have taught are selves.

This is why Jesus said, “ I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man can come to the Father, except through me.

In Scripture, the words for law In Hebrew is torah, as I said earlier the Greek word is nomos, and these can mean a wide variety of things like:

Law- law (collection) n. — a whole collected body of law; sometimes one or more of the five books of Moses and other times simply an unspecified set of laws.

Commandment-command n. — an authoritative direction or instruction to do something; through speech or writing.

Principle-

Instruction-

Statues- rules of personal conduct

Judgements- judgment (determination) n. — a determination of right and wrong on legal matters.

All these terms and more seem to point to the Law church....

Look at what Psalm 19 says:

Psalm 19:7–11 NKJV

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, Yea, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them Your servant is warned, And in keeping them there is great reward.

The Apostle Paul said it like this:

Romans 3:31 NASB95

Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.

Romans 3:31 NKJV

Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.

Nullify/ Void- katargeō- (kat-arg-eh'-o)-to render idle, unemployed, inactivate, inoperative, to cause to cease, put an end to, do away with, annul, abolish, to cease, to pass away, be done away with.

Going back to Jesus’ sermon, we have seen clearly what it means to belong to the Kingdom of God through the beatitudes and what he said was radical and counter cultural to what everyone had heard in the past.

What is interesting to me is that Jesus was God in flesh, and yet until now, he said nothing about the law and the importance of keeping it and he said nothing about the traditional interpretation of the law as well.

Does this mean that Jesus came to destroy the law?

CERTAINLY NOT!!!

Rather, Jesus was teaching that the way to salvation and entry into God’s Kingdom was not by merit gained through obedience to the law and tradition, but rather being poor in spirit, broken and mourning over sin.

Here, Jesus flipped the tables of the hearts of all who would listen church, he moved from external observance to internal heart transformation that happen from a personal realtionship with Him.

To the listening Pharisees, this must have sounded like Jesus came to destroy the law and everything that they stood for. But instead, Jesus had taught that they could and we could enter God’s kingdom by God’s grace, noting that he made no comment on the law, until now.

And I believe he knew what was in the heart of man, therefore he deiced to teach on the very thing they thought they had all figured out.

Can you imagine what was going on in their heads and hearts at this moment?

How would do we respond when somebody teaches us something contrary to what we believe, think we know, or have been taught by others?

It is crucial for us to leave here today understanding that Christians are not antinomians, that live morally loose lives, but rather a people that hunger and thirst for a righteousness that must surpass that righteousness of the Pharisees church.

Do we nullify the law?

The apostle Paul in the church age, says certainly not!

He goes on to say:

Romans 8:3–4 NKJV

For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

When Jesus spoke of the Law and the Prophets in our text for today, he was talking about the OT scriptures church.

And the whole OT points to Jesus!

As I close and I know have challenged our thinking, I would hope that we would go home this week and study to show ourselves approved!

Next week, we will continue our study here and we will learn that the Law can be placed in three/ four categories:

Ceremonial

Civic/Political/ Judaical/ Dietary

Moral

Which ones were for Israel? Which do we keep church?

If you set aside a glass of water with dirt and garbage in it and left it undisturbed for a few days, the particles would settle to the bottom of the glass so that the water would begin to look drinkable. However, we all know that it would still be dangerous to drink, even though it wasn’t readily evident. If you took a sterile spoon and stirred the water, it would become readily evident that the water was not clean. The law is like the sterile spoon—though perfect in itself, it was intended to make evident to us the true nature that exists within us. The law was designed to show people their sinfulness and then drive them to God for His gracious salvation. The law tells me how crooked I am; grace comes along and straightens me out. The law was given to the nation of Israel, even though it contains moral principles which are valid for people in every age. The law had attached to it the penalty of death and to break one command was to be guilty of breaking them all.

* James 2:10—For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

Since we are all sinners and have broken the law, we are under the curse of death. God’s righteousness and holiness demanded that the penalty for sin be paid. It was for this reason that Jesus came into the world. He came to pay the penalty of mankind’s sins by His death on the cross. He died as a substitute for guilty lawbreakers, even though He Himself was sinless. He did not wave the law aside, rather He met the full demands of the law by fulfilling its strict requirements in His life and also in His death. Thus, the Gospel does not overthrow the law. It upholds God’s law and shows how the law’s demands have been fully satisfied by Christ’s redemptive work.

Prayer

Lord, thank you for going to the cross for each one us and imputing your righteousness unto us. It is by grace that we have been saved by faith to do the good works that you have saved us for. We have all struggled with concept of grace and law and have been and are confused about this subject. Forgive us for laying aside your law for the sake of grace and help us over the next few weeks to understand fully that the gospel of grace does not overthrow the your Law, but rather cause us to walk in your ways our Lord. Father, please give us opportunities this week to be your hands and feet, and may you open doors for us to share the everlasting gospel. Be with us as we go!!

In Jesus Name, we Love You! Amen

Benediction

Romans 13:8 NKJV

Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.

THE LORD BLESS YOU!

YOUR MISSION STARTS NOW!

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