You're Not Good Enough
Tom Shrader works through Matthew 5:17-20, explaining that Jesus came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it perfectly—both its moral demands and its ceremonial and prophetic dimensions. The passage's key verse, that one's righteousness must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees, is unpacked to show that external religious compliance without a transformed heart cannot earn salvation. Drawing on Philippians 3 and the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Shrader calls listeners to abandon self-made religion and trust in the righteousness that comes through faith in Christ alone.
“All religion is the story of man trying to find a way to appease a holy God, trying to reach up and grab a holy God, and we can't do it. But biblical Christianity is the story of God reaching down and grabbing you and me and pulling us up.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: The Sermon on the Mount
Recorded: 2005 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 51 min
Themes: righteousness, salvation, grace, law, religion, faith, self-righteousness, heart change, feeling not good enough, struggling with self-righteousness, religious but lost, new believer, seeker, young adult, doubting salvation, performance-based faith
Scripture: Matthew 5:8-16, Matthew 5:17-20, Matthew 5:21-22, Matthew 5:27-28, Matthew 5:33-34, Matthew 5:38-39, Matthew 5:43-44, Matthew 23:13-29, 2 Timothy 3:12, Daniel 3:15-19, Hebrews 11:35, Romans 8:28, Hebrews 4:12, Romans 12:1, 2 Corinthians 5:1, James 3:1, Philippians 3:4-11
Theological Themes: justification, imputed righteousness, fulfillment of the law, sola fide, faith alone, sermon on the mount, works righteousness, soteriology
Full Transcript
Introduction: A Counterculture Faith
The second session of the Winter Institute classes begins next week. Registration continues today in the courtyard after the service, or you can register online for any of the classes. Two classes in particular are worth highlighting. The first is the Biblical Counseling class, taught by Larry Ross, which will give you some instruction to begin to deal with other people — and that is inevitable in life, because people will come to you and say, "I've got this issue, can you help me?" This class will give you some tools to work through that. The second is the class on eschatology — the end times — which is always an exciting subject for people. That class is offered at four o'clock on Sunday, so you can enroll in either one.
Turn your Bibles, if you would, to Matthew chapter 5. What we are studying is the Sermon on the Mount — Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. The greatest preacher who ever lived is preaching the greatest sermon that was ever preached. John Stott, in his introductory comments to his commentary, writes this: "The followers of Jesus are to be different — different from the nominal church, different from the secular world, different from both the religious and the irreligious. The Sermon on the Mount is the most complete delineation anywhere in the New Testament of the Christian counterculture."
John Stott says that you and I are to be different — not odd, not weird, but radical, revolutionary, and countercultural. How countercultural are we? How quickly does our faith pit us against the world we live in? The very first verse of the very first book of the Bible — "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" — pretty well pits you against the culture you live in. Many of you who are in junior high, high school, or college know that that is a minority view among your professors and teachers.
Intellectual Bigotry and the Countercultural Call
Bill Maher — some of you would know him from television — hosted a show called *Politically Incorrect* on ABC and now has a special on HBO. Larry King has him on fairly regularly, and he appeared on Joe Scarborough's show on MSNBC. Here is what Maher said, and I am quoting directly: "We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I believe that. I think that religion stops people from thinking. I think it just justifies crazies. I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder. If you look at it logically, it's something that was drilled into your head when you were a small child — certainly was drilled into mine at that age — and you really can't be responsible when you're a kid for what adults put into your head."
He continued: "When you look at beliefs in such things as — do you go to heaven, is there a devil — we have more in common with Turkey and Iran and Syria than we do with the European nations and Canada, nations that, yes, I consider more enlightened than us." I will tell you, I have never met a Canadian I considered more enlightened than me, and certainly not a European — though there are a few Canadians here who would be the exceptions. But this intellectual bigotry makes me sick.
And Maher was not done. He also said: "When people say to me, 'You hate America,' I don't hate America, I love America. I'm just embarrassed that it's been taken over by people like evangelicals — people who do not believe in science and rationality. It's the 21st century, and I will tell you, my friend, the future does not belong to the evangelicals. The future does not belong to religion." So it is embarrassing, in his view, that the country has been handed over to non-thinkers — people like Jonathan Edwards, whom that great Christian publication the *Encyclopedia Britannica* considers the greatest mind America ever produced. This is simply junk. This is intellectual bigotry.
I thought: what if Bill Maher got this tape and said, "Come on with me?" That opportunity would be a great privilege — because elsewhere he talks about Jonah being a fairy tale, and all that goes with it. But that is the great privilege we have: to stand up in a world where our faith is countercultural from the very beginning. That is how Jesus says we are to live. The whole message of the Sermon on the Mount is counterculture — and not just counterculture to our moment in America, but countercultural even in Jesus' day to His own listeners.
The Beatitudes: A Countercultural Vision of Happiness
Look at Matthew chapter 5, verse 8. I have now said this to you four, five, or six weeks in a row, but notice that verses 8, 9, 10, and 11 all begin with the word "blessed" — which means happy. This is genuine happiness. This is a deep satisfaction that comes from an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, providing a deep sense of satisfaction in God's presence in my life.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the gentle." When the Jews and Romans of Jesus' time heard those words, that was counterculture. They did not consider gentleness a virtue. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are those who are merciful" — another sign of weakness in that culture. "Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed are the peacemakers."
Jesus said: this is the way to live. I am not going to go through all of those again — you have endured that for the last three weeks. But it begins with understanding that I am spiritually destitute, and then moving forward from there.
Persecution Versus Suffering
Conversion takes place, and I am now a follower of Christ. Jesus offers us another word of encouragement: "Blessed are those who have been persecuted. And blessed are you when men cast insults at you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely on account of me." Paul said it to Timothy this way, in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 12: "Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." That is a promise.
There is a distinction we want to make here between suffering and persecution. Suffering is the general wear and tear of life. There is a lot of suffering, a lot of pain, a lot of hurt in this room, in this church, and among people in your life. There are things that are tough and difficult. But that is just suffering — the normal wear and tear of life.
Persecution is spelled out in verse 11. It is when men persecute you, cast insults at you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely on account of your relationship with Jesus Christ. So cancer, in and of itself, is a suffering, but it is not persecution.
We had a lady in one of our studies who was a follower of Christ, and she got cancer. Her husband was a pagan. She would be in her hospital bed, dying of an inoperable condition — the doctors could do nothing; only a miracle from God could help, and one did not come. Her husband would go in and shout at her, "Where's your Jesus now? Where's your God now? Where's your God at this moment, as you lie there dying?" That is when suffering begins to become persecution.
What was fascinating was that here she was with her body wasting away, and yet she had a great sense of peace, while he was a mess. The difference was not her physical condition — it was her spiritual condition. She had a relationship with Jesus, and he did not.
Daniel Chapter Three: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
We are studying the book of Daniel in Priority Living right now, so turn to the left into the Old Testament — just a few pages to the book of Daniel, chapter three. One fascinating observation about this chapter: Daniel's name appears nowhere in it. Daniel is certainly a central figure in this study, but he fades from the scene here. Nebuchadnezzar takes center stage, along with three young men — Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Here is the situation: Nebuchadnezzar has built a ninety-foot-high statue of gold, set on a twenty-foot pedestal, on a very flat plain so it can be seen from miles away. When the sun would hit it and the music kicked in, Nebuchadnezzar's order was this: bow down and worship the statue. If you do not, you will be thrown into the fire and burned.
These three men were not about to worship a false idol. The music struck up, and they did not bow down. Someone saw them, went to the king, and said, "You are a man of your word, king. Those three men did not bow down." So the king went to them and gave them a chance to explain or recant. They did not.
Look at verse 15, in the middle of the verse. He says, "If you will not worship, you will immediately be cast into the midst of the furnace of the blazing fire, and what god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?" They respond in verse 16: "Oh, Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this. If it be so, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the furnace of the blazing fire, and He will deliver us out of your hand, oh king."
Here is the most powerful man in the world saying, "Boys, if you do not recant, you are going into the fire." And they say, "That is fine, but understand something — our God is able to save us. He invented fire. He created fire. He can get us out of the furnace. He can deliver us if He wants to."
Into the Fire
Into the fire they go. They give him that statement, and Nebuchadnezzar is furious. Look at verse 19. He is so filled with wrath that, as the New American Standard puts it, "his facial expression was altered." He orders the furnace heated seven times hotter than normal.
Now, indirectly, he is doing them a favor. If you are going into a fire, you do not want to be slow-cooked — you want it over quickly. So he cranks it up seven times hotter and throws them in.
Then Nebuchadnezzar looks in and says, "Wait a minute — weren't there three men we put in there, and weren't they all tied up? Now there are four men in there, they are loosened, and they are walking around. And the fourth one, if I look closely, looks like one of the sons of God." It is a wonderful picture of a pre-incarnate Christ.
The application is powerful: as you go through all the things life throws at you, you do not go through them alone. Jesus walks right there with you. He may not take you out of the fire, but He will walk right there with you.
But my favorite part of the whole story —
Salt, Light, and Suffering
Verse 17 tells us that our God is able to get us out. Verse 18, however, introduces a crucial qualification. One of the things that can trouble us about the stories in Daniel is that he gets out of the jam every time. He doesn't burn in the fire. He doesn't get eaten in the lion's den. So subconsciously we read these stories and say, "If we are obedient, if we follow what God asks, if we put our faith in Him, it will always have a happy ending." That is not necessarily so.
Sometimes you will get thrown into that fire and you will just burn right up. Hebrews 11 gives us the hall of fame of faith, where we see mighty deeds — women receiving their men back from the dead and all manner of extraordinary things. But then it says, in Hebrews 11:35, in the second part of that verse, that some were cut in two and some were stoned. And we should note that words change meaning across generations — this does not mean what it might sound like today. It means rocks were thrown at people to kill them. That is the stoning described there.
It does not always work out the way we would want, but it always works for good. We know this: "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose." So when we look at Daniel, we see suffering and persecution — and sometimes we are delivered from it, and sometimes we are not. As we saw last week in Matthew chapter five, "Blessed are you when they cast insults at you and say things falsely on account of me." Suffering and pain are a normal part of life, and persecution comes with them. The 20th century was called the century of the martyrs — more people were martyred for their faith in that century than in all other centuries combined.
You Are Salt and Light
Turning to verses 13 and 14, notice that both verses begin with the same two words: "You are." You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. In the Greek, the word "you" is plural in both cases. It is speaking of all of us together — we are the salt of the earth, we are the light of the world. That is the role we are to fulfill here on earth.
Salt is a commodity that every generation throughout human history would understand. We understand salt and we understand light, though salt tended to carry greater value in the ancient world. Roman soldiers were sometimes even paid in salt — that is where the phrase comes from: "He's not worth his salt," or "He's worth his weight in salt." It could be stated either positively or negatively.
As we discussed last week, salt has a number of functions. It provides flavor, and perhaps we do that in the world. It also stings — get salt in a wound and you feel it. We bring a little sting to the world as well. Our mission is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. There are people who are hurting and need comfort, but there are also people who are perfectly at ease in this world and need a little sting, and you and I provide that. Salt is also purifying, and we fill that role. And it is a preservative.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones captured this preservative function powerfully. He wrote: "Most competent historians are agreed in saying that what undoubtedly saved England from a revolution such as that experienced in France at the end of the 18th century was nothing but the evangelical revival." He goes on to say that it was not a mass movement but individuals living out their Christian life. We function as that kind of preservative in society.
Paul also tells us that we are to be light in the midst of — and this is from the Living Translation — "a bunch of crooks and perverts." Does that sound like your school? Your office? The place where you work? Salt also creates thirst, and that may be its most quietly powerful function.
Creating Thirst: Two Stories
There was a husband and wife who were pretty dedicated to seeing how much sin they could commit together as a couple. They were involved in all sorts of sexual sin, group sexual sin, drugs, and everything that goes with that kind of life. Somehow the wife ended up in a Bible study, and God saved her. She went home truly converted, understanding that her life had to change, but she did not know how to tell her husband — so she said nothing. She simply lived differently for three weeks.
Finally she could not take it any longer, and one day she said to him, "Something happened to me three weeks ago, and I want to talk to you about it." He said, "I don't want to hear about it. All I know is I want whatever you've got. Tell me how to get it." He had seen in her a life that was transformed, and it created a thirst in him. That is what should happen with us. There should be people in your life — people at school, people at work — who see a distinct difference about you.
I recently went to two baseball games on a Friday night and Saturday, which is unusual for me. A friend of mine and his wife were in town from Houston because their son was playing for Baylor, and Baylor was playing ASU, so I went over for both games. While we were talking, their daughter called from Boulder. She and a group of young people had moved there as part of something of a mission effort — they were going to be part of a church, get jobs, and simply live as Christians in the community. She ended up working in a hotel, the only Christian on staff.
Her mother was telling me the story, and it was remarkable. This young woman is about 24 years old, has never had the opportunity to attend a church there, and has never had sex. The rest of the staff does not quite know how to deal with her. It is almost like a petting zoo — come in and look at her. She is living in such a way that she stands out completely from everyone around her.
kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
The Word of God Endures
Jesus makes an extraordinary claim here. He says that heaven and earth will pass away before the smallest letter of this Word passes away. A timeless God does not produce dated material. When we take this standard into the world, we allow people to see who they really are. It allows us to see reality, to see things as they are.
The Word of God is a life giver. It points us to Jesus, and we find life in Him and Him alone. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12 says, "For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword and it's able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. And there's not a creature hidden from His sight but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." The New Living Translation puts it this way: "Everything is naked and exposed before His eyes. This is the God with whom we must all explain what we've done."
We are going to have to look Him in the eye. When people are about to tell a lie, you can watch it happen — their eyes turn away. I've seen it with my own daughters when they were small. I would start talking to them, their eyes would go away, and I'd say, "Look me in the eye." That's what the Word does. The Word lays us bare, lays us open. You cannot hide from Him.
Rick Holland, a college pastor at Grace Church in Los Angeles, tells the story of a college student — a guy and a girl — who came into his office stammering around. He finally asked what they were there for, and the young man said they were having sex. Rick said he already knew, that someone had seen them. They went through the list anxiously: someone from the college group? Someone on staff? Rick himself? John MacArthur? No to all of them. Then Rick said, "God saw you." And they kind of went, "Oh — we thought it was really somebody." That is our tendency, isn't it? We want to hide from each other, but there is no hiding. You cannot fool Him. He is God.
The Word lays you bare. It shows you as you really are. It gives life and points you to life.
Salt, Light, and Visible Distinctiveness
You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel basket — they put it on a lampstand, and it gives light to everyone. Then comes the punchline in verse 16: "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven."
Eugene Peterson captures this same idea in Romans chapter 12, verse 1: "Take your everyday, ordinary life, your sleeping, eating, going to work, walking around life, and place it before God as an offering. Do not become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking."
We are simply supposed to live this way. There is something visibly distinctive about the way you act and the way you behave, and it is presumably a demonstration of a changed heart. She doesn't do drugs, she doesn't drink, she doesn't swear, she works hard, she is honest — and people are absolutely fascinated. What makes you tick? Why do you act like that? That is what it means to create thirst. You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt becomes tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything. It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
The Structure of the Sermon on the Mount
As we move through the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5, verses 1 through 16 serve as the introduction. From Matthew 5:17 through Matthew 7:11 is the body, and the remainder of chapter 7 is the close. We have heard about the Beatitudes and how we are supposed to live. Now we come to the verses before us tonight.
Chapter 5, verse 17: "Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill." Verse 18: "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the law till all is accomplished." Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For Jesus says that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
The Foundation of God's Word
"For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." That verse — Matthew 5:20 — is probably the key verse in the Sermon on the Mount. If those in the crowd had drifted off and Jesus wasn't connecting with them, this is the verse that would pull them back. When Jesus spoke these words, it was a thud. Their jaws fell open. It doesn't strike us that way, so we need to come back and unpack that in a moment.
Of these four verses — Matthew 5:17 through 20 — John MacArthur writes that they teach the foundation for the inner qualities of the Beatitudes and how we're to function as God's salt and light. We're called to live this way, to function this way. But how do we do it? The foundation is God's Word, the only standard for righteousness and truth. We have to take these things together: who Jesus is, what He says, and the standard of His Word.
Jesus and the Law
Verse 17: "Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill." When the Jews talked about the law, they referred to essentially four things. The first was the Ten Commandments. The second was the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, authored by Moses. The third was the Old Testament itself. The fourth — and most common — use of the term referred to what the rabbis and scribes taught: the traditions, the details, the excruciatingly agonizing details of what the law meant.
So there would be one law that said keep the Sabbath holy, and then there would be all these additional laws explaining what that meant — you can't carry a burden on the Sabbath, and on into all this minutia. They developed 250 positive laws, meaning "do this," and 350 prohibitions, meaning "don't do this." And the scribes and the Pharisees taught these things over and over again.
Jesus doesn't come along to obliterate or abolish any of this. The word "abolish" means to utterly overthrow or destroy. At least 64 times, Jesus refers to the Old Testament as authoritative truth. He says, "I'm the fulfillment of that. I didn't come to tear this down." That same word is used in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 1, where Paul writes, "For we know that if the earthly tent, which is our house, is torn down" — the same word translated "abolished" — "we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven." Jesus didn't come to smash or tear down, but to fulfill.
How Jesus Fulfilled the Law
How did He fulfill it? He fulfilled it perfectly. He fulfilled the moral law by living a perfect life. He fulfilled the ceremonial law by being the perfect sacrifice. Under the old order of worship, you had to find the perfect lamb, the spotless lamb. You needed a priest, an intermediary, someone to act between you and God. Jesus fills that role entirely — He is our high priest. You no longer need an intermediary. You have open access to the throne of God. You don't need a priest, and you don't need to repeat the sacrifice. Jesus died once and for all.
He also fulfilled the judicial law and its requirements. Most importantly, He is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah — dozens and hundreds of prophecies about what the Messiah would be, how He would act, where He would be born. Jesus is the perfect fulfillment of every one of them. As He says Himself: "I did not come to abolish the law or the prophets. I came to fulfill it."
The Signature of Jesus
Verse 18 opens with a remarkable phrase: "For truly I say to you." That phrase is unique to Jesus. The author R.T. France calls it Jesus' own signature. No other teacher is known to have used it. It occurs 31 times in Matthew's gospel and 25 times in John's gospel. By saying it, Jesus is declaring, "I'm telling you the truth. I swear to you by who I am — amen." In John's gospel you hear it as "verily, verily," or "amen, amen." It's the equivalent of saying, "Watch this closely. Don't miss it." If you look through sermon notes, you'll sometimes see the abbreviation NB — nota bene, Latin for "note well, take note, look closely." That's exactly what Jesus is saying here.
"Truly I say to you, until heaven and earth passes away, not the smallest letter or stroke will pass away of the law." Not the smallest letter, not an asterisk, not an apostrophe. This is God's authoritative Word. One author writes: "No other statement made by our Lord more clearly states His absolute contention that scripture is verbally inerrant, totally without error in the original form in which God gave it." That is, scripture is God's own Word — not only down to every single word, but down to every letter and to the smallest part of every letter. This is the Word of God.
What We Do with Scripture
So what do we do with it? We teach from it. We proclaim it. We really don't have a great deal to say except what comes from this — everything else is merely our opinion. And we obey it. There seems to be a direct correlation between how seriously we take this and whether we actually obey it, and that makes sense.
Consider the Episcopal Church wrestling with whether to ordain homosexuals. Those who still hold that this is the inerrant Word of God will say that clearly they should not — that is sin. Those who treat it as just a book of fairy tales will say it doesn't matter. This is God's Word, and so we obey it, we proclaim it, and we defend it.
The Weight of Verse 20
"But whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." The word *annuls* means to break, to set loose, to release, to dissolve, to make void. Whoever doesn't teach the whole of God's Word fails in a serious responsibility. Paul came to the elders at Ephesus to say goodbye, and he told them, "I did not shrink from teaching you the whole counsel of God." He taught them the whole Word — all of it, right down to the last letter.
Some of you in this room are teachers. Some teach junior high or high school, others lead a small group or teach in some other setting. James has solemn words for all of us in that position: "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we shall incur a stricter judgment" (James 3:1). It is a serious matter.
All of this brings us to verse 20 — the key verse, really, of the Sermon on the Mount. "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." As I said earlier, this landed like a thud. When these words came in, the people went, *whoa.* This was something truly significant.
The reason it hit so hard was that the Jews had a saying: if only two people could go to heaven, one would be a scribe and the other would be a Pharisee. And now Jesus is saying your righteousness has to surpass theirs. The people hearing this thought, we haven't got a chance. For us today, it would be like saying you have to be holier than the Pope, or more righteous than John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, or Mother Teresa — the holiest people you can imagine. You would sit there thinking, I don't have a shot. That is exactly what they heard.
Exposing the Scribes and Pharisees
Jesus is going to come along and expose these men for who they really are. He will allow the people to see that the scribes and Pharisees are not who everyone thought they were. Turn to Matthew chapter 23, where Jesus addresses them directly. Beginning in verse 13, you will see a phrase repeated eight times — a kind of counterbalance to the Beatitudes. Where the Beatitudes say "blessed," here Jesus says "woe."
Verse 13: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." Verse 14: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." Verse 15: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." Verse 16: "Woe to you, blind guides." Verse 23: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." Verse 25: "Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites." Verse 27: "Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites." And again in verse 29: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites." If you mark your Bible, it is helpful to circle repeated phrases like these — your eye goes right to them, and you immediately recognize the pattern.
If we were to take all of those "woe to you's" and boil them down to one, look at verse 27: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but on the inside you are filled with dead man's bones and all uncleanliness." They looked great on the outside. They appeared to have their act together. They were complying externally with the law. The problem was their hearts were not right.
When most of us hear the word *Pharisee*, we have a caricature in mind — the villain of the story — because we have read the whole book and we know what scoundrels these men turned out to be. But let me remind you of something: to the people of that day, the Pharisees were the heroes. They were evangelistic, going out to proselytize. They were tithers — not just of money, but of herbs and spices, giving a tenth of everything. They were men of prayer. They were serious students of the Bible. On the surface, they had it all together spiritually. But Jesus is going to expose them.
You Have Heard It Said, But I Say to You
Look back at Matthew chapter 5. I want you to see another important pattern running through the rest of this chapter. Jesus says in verse 20 that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. The scribes and Pharisees were the teachers. They took the Law and the writings of the authorities of the past and communicated them — but Jesus says they did not communicate them fully, in their entirety.
The pattern begins in verse 21: "You have heard it said" — followed in verse 22 by "but I say to you." Then verse 27: "You have heard that it was said" — verse 28: "but I say to you." Verse 33: "You have heard the ancients were told" — verse 34: "but I say to you." Verse 38: "You have heard it said" — verse 39: "but I say to you." Verse 43: "You have heard that it was said" — verse 44: "but I say to you."
Let's take just one of those to look at more closely. Verse 27: "You have heard it said that you should not commit adultery." That was the teaching — you should not engage in this physical sexual act. But verse 28: "But I say to you that whoever looks on a woman to lust for her has committed
The External vs. The Internal
The scribes and Pharisees were all about the external. They loved the law. They loved compliance with outward behavior. They would say, "We're clean. No problem here. We haven't engaged in any sexual activity." And Jesus lifts up their cloak and exposes them, saying, "Would you, if you could?" We don't care about the ceremony anymore. We don't care about the outside. They were just playing the game.
Some of you could be here playing the game, especially as students — just doing what mom and dad want you to do. You're good kids. You're compliant kids, so you hang here, but your heart has never been changed. Or you're just playing the church game. It's part of the culture, part of the way you were raised. So you give financially, you teach Sunday school, you pray, you study the Word. That's exactly what the Pharisees did — but there was no heart change.
We love the externals, don't we? We love to judge people. Look at him. Look at her. Look at the earring, the piercing, what they're wearing, how long his hair is. And we conclude, "He couldn't possibly be a believer." I was talking to somebody a while ago who was speaking about a relative — a nephew, I believe — and he said, "The guy says he's a Christian, but he has an earring." We love to focus on the behavior, the external. That's easy.
Why Man Loves Religion
That's why man loves religion. Everything other than biblical Christianity is religion. We love it. Don't do this. Come over here. Sit down here. Stand over there. Teach a Sunday school class. Give a little of this. And then we stand before God and say, "Look at what I did. I did this, and this, and this, and this. You have to accept me. I may not be perfect, but I'm basically good."
And God says, "No. The standard is perfection." Were you perfect? Let's say we could wipe the slate clean right now and start over. Do you think you could be perfect for a week? The people in the front row are all shaking their heads no. A day? An hour? A minute? Could you love God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul for the next ten seconds? No. That's what He is saying.
He is calling these men — and calling us — to abandon religion and cling to relationship. To abandon our efforts to please a holy God and cling to a right relationship with Him.
Paul's Autobiography in Philippians 3
Let me give one more example of this, from the New Testament. Philippians chapter 3. This is exactly the point Paul is making. Paul was a very religious man, and here he is speaking against the Judaizers — the men who had come to town insisting that circumcision was necessary for salvation and were trying to throw the law back onto Christians. And Paul says, "Let me speak autobiographically."
Philippians chapter 3, verse 4: "although I myself might have confidence in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more." He is saying, you want to compare pedigrees? You want to compare human righteousness? Fine. Let me tell you my story.
Verse 5: "I was circumcised on the eighth day." Paul is certainly not taking personal credit for that — he didn't tell his mother it was the eighth day. What he is saying is, "I came from a godly family." He continues: "of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee." You want to talk about the law, the full regimen of the law? He was a Pharisee. You want to talk about zeal? He didn't play church. When this new movement called Christianity appeared, Paul didn't sit back in Jerusalem and talk about the problems down in Damascus — he went down there to clean them out. That's how he lived.
"As to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless." He followed the law perfectly. Then comes verse 7: "But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ." Here is the contrast. And verse 8: "More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish" — the King James says *dung* — "so that I may gain Christ."
All those achievements, all that religious activity, all that effort — it does not amount to anything compared to knowing Christ and who He is.
Righteousness That Comes from God
Look at verse 9: "and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."
Paul is saying, "I am a new creature. I don't even try to satisfy that law perfectly anymore. I can't keep it up. I fail. I sin. I cannot meet this standard." He was as good as anyone there was, and he is making the point that even his very best fell completely short.
Righteousness That Falls Short
Paul was saying, "I was the super Jew. I was the Jew of all Jews. You can't find anything better than me." But his righteousness was the righteousness derived from the law, and it is filthy rags before God.
The call we have in our life is to live a life of perfection if we want to live by the law, and the honest truth is: you can't measure up. You can't satisfy the law. You won't live perfectly. But there is hope for you.
What Jesus Did in Your Place
God doesn't change the standards. He doesn't grade on a curve all of a sudden. He still requires 100%, but Jesus died for you.
It's the idea that He took your place. When He died on the cross, He who was sinless, He who knew no sin, became sin. He took on the penalty of sin and was treated by the Father as though He had sinned.
Many of you, I'm sure, saw *The Passion of the Christ*, and you saw the brutal physical depiction of what He endured, and you would wince as you watched. That is what you deserve — and more. You deserve that eternally. But Jesus died so that you could have eternal life.
Freedom From the Law
All of our efforts don't amount to anything until we cling to Him and are grateful to Him. He freed us from the law. We are not in bondage to the law anymore.
Our story is not one of us trying to make a holy God happy. All religion is the story of man trying to find a way to appease a holy God, trying to reach up and grab hold of Him — and we can't do it. But biblical Christianity is the story of God reaching down and grabbing you and me and pulling us up.
Our condition is absolutely hopeless and helpless apart from Christ. But He comes into our life, and He expects our life to change. He comes with a whole new way of thinking, and we will pick up right there next time.
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*Father, help us see this truth, that our lives would be such that people look at us and glorify You. Father, thank You for Jesus Christ and who He is. Thank You for His love for us, and that while we were yet sinners, He died so that we might have eternal life. Father, we pray that You would continue to work in us, to act and to will according to Your purpose. As we leave this place, we understand we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Father, let us live that way through Your strength. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.*