It Is a Matter of the Heart
Tom Shrader works through six contrasting illustrations in Matthew 5:21-48, where Jesus expands the Law to reveal that God judges the heart's motives, not merely external behavior. Using examples from anger, lust, divorce, oaths, retaliation, and love of enemies, Shrader shows that the scribes and Pharisees kept the letter of the Law while missing its spirit entirely. The teaching drives toward verse 48—'be perfect as your Father is perfect'—pointing listeners to their need for grace rather than self-righteous rule-keeping.
“It is not lustful looking that causes sin in the heart, but it is sin in the heart that causes lustful looking. The heart is the soil where the seeds of sin are embedded and begin to grow.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: The Sermon on the Mount
Recorded: 2005 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 46 min
Themes: heart, anger, lust, forgiveness, love your enemies, grace, obedience, hypocrisy, struggling with anger, dealing with lust, going through divorce, feeling self-righteous, new believer, man, husband, searching for grace
Scripture: Matthew 5:21-48, Matthew 5:17, Matthew 5:20, Matthew 5:23-24, Matthew 5:27-28, Matthew 5:29-30, Matthew 5:31-32, Matthew 5:33-37, Matthew 5:38-42, Matthew 5:43-48, Matthew 6:1-4, Matthew 6:5-15, Matthew 6:16-18, Matthew 7:1, Matthew 18, Matthew 23, Exodus 20:13, Exodus 20:14, Exodus 21:24, Deuteronomy 5:18, Leviticus 19:18, 1 Kings 8:39, 1 Chronicles 28:9, Proverbs 16:2, Malachi 2:16, Genesis 2:18, John 12:42, 1 Corinthians 5:3, 1 John 3:15, Ephesians 4, Philippians 2:5-8, James 5
Theological Themes: sermon on the mount, law and gospel, sanctification, heart motivation, righteousness, pharisaism, moral perfection, fulfillment of the law
Full Transcript
Introduction to Matthew 5:21–48
Please turn to Matthew chapter 5, and we will continue our study in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. I think I've said this every week: this is the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever lived, and that in and of itself makes it significant. Today we are going to cover Matthew chapter 5, verses 21 through 48. I have taught the Sermon on the Mount before, and on these verses I spent five weeks, but I don't want to do that this time. In that instance we were looking only at the Sermon on the Mount, whereas here we are looking at the life of Christ, and all six of these issues will be raised again in Jesus' teaching, so we will spend more in-depth time there.
What these verses serve to do is provide us a commentary on Jesus' previous teaching. In chapter 5, verse 17, Jesus said, "Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill." Then in Matthew chapter 5, verse 20 — the key verse in the Sermon on the Mount, the verse that when it was spoken landed like a bombshell on the people who heard it — He said, "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."
When those gathered heard those words, it stopped them cold. There was a Jewish saying that went like this: if only two people could go to heaven, one would be a scribe and the other would be a Pharisee. The people held that group in the highest regard for their adherence to the law. So when they heard that their righteousness needed to surpass even that standard, they were left thinking they had no chance and no hope at all.
The Pattern of Six Illustrations
What Jesus does in verses 21 through 48 is give them help. What you are going to see is a pattern that develops — six illustrations through which Jesus expands and explains His teaching. The first is in verse 21: "You have heard that the ancients were told" — and then verse 22: "But I say to you." The second illustration appears in verse 27: "You have heard that it was said" — and verse 28: "But I say to you." Verse 31: "It was said" — verse 32: "But I say to you." Verse 33: "Again, you have heard that the ancients were told" — verse 34: "But I say to you." Verse 38, the fifth illustration: "You have heard it was said" — verse 39: "But I say to you." And the last of the six illustrations, verse 43: "You have heard it was said" — verse 44: "But I say to you."
Here is what Jesus is doing. He is pitting Himself not against the law and not against the prophets. Jesus does not say, "It was written." He says, "You have heard" or "It was said." In that day, the common Jew did not have a copy of the Scripture. Martyn Lloyd-Jones observes that this was very similar to the situation in the early sixteenth century. Jones writes: "The Scripture was not translated into the languages of the people. The liturgy, the prayers, the Scripture reading, even most of the hymns and anthems were in Latin, which none of the common people knew or understood. When a priest gave a sermon or homily, the people had nothing by which to judge what he said. They had no idea whether it was his message or whether it was the Scripture itself. The Bible taught what the church said it taught. The church, therefore, placed its own authority over the Scriptures."
That is exactly what was happening in Jesus' time. The scribes and the Pharisees — the teachers — had come along and said, "Here is what the ancients say." Jesus picks up on that and says, "Listen, this is what you have heard, this is what you have been taught — but I want to take this whole teaching to a different level."
The Spirit of the Law Versus the Letter
This is again really important: Jesus is expanding on and building on the idea that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you are not going to enter heaven. What Jesus is saying is that the spirit of the law is as important as — perhaps even more important than — the letter of the law. He is breaking the myth that Scripture simply consists of a list of prohibitions.
Occasionally I will speak with someone who is not a Christian, and they will say the problem with Christianity is that it is just a bunch of "don't do this" and "don't do that." And some people push back on that immediately, but honestly, Scripture is filled with prohibitions. Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this. But that is not all there is. In Ephesians chapter 4, Paul says it this way: put off the old, but put on the new. Don't do this, but do this. Stop lying — that gets you to neutral — now tell the truth. Stop stealing and go to work. Jesus is saying there are deeper issues beneath the surface.
It is understandable that people would look at the scribes and Pharisees and judge them favorably, because on the outside they looked righteous. But in Matthew chapter 23, Jesus says they are like whitewashed tombs — they look good on the outside, but on the inside they are filled with dead men's bones. Jesus comes along and breaks us free from the bondage of the law and from legalism. There is a tension here: Jesus is saying it is not about outward performance — it is about the condition of the heart.
The Heart Behind the Rules
Where your heart is — that is what matters. It is about how you are thinking and what your motive is. Then Jesus comes right back in Matthew chapter 7, verse 1. I do not care if you are talking to a person who has never even seen a Bible. They know this verse: "Judge not, lest you be judged." Who are you to judge me? Judge not, lest you be judged. There is something extraordinarily fascinating to me about this. Jesus says, listen, it is not the externals that represent compliance. It is the motivation of a right heart that prompts the external.
Yet when we judge, what do we judge? All the externals. He comes along and says, listen, I do not want you to get hung up in the externals — but what do we do? We look at one another and judge the external. We love the externals. We love legalism. We love rules.
There is a tension I feel all the time, and one of those is the tension to give you a bunch of rules. People want us to give them a bunch of rules. Tell us what to do with parenting. Tell us what to do with schooling. Tell us whether we can have a drink, whether we can smoke, whether we can go to a movie. Give us a bunch of rules. Why do you want rules? So you can check them off and say, did that, did that, did that — I must be okay. We love that.
Jesus comes along and says, I will give you a rule. You want a rule? Love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Have you got any other rules? Have you got something else we can do? Because that is a big one. What does that mean? Jesus is kicking the slats out of the whole thought process they had. They had all these rules and thought, wow, these guys are incredible. And Jesus says, no, not at all.
What God Sees That We Cannot
By the way, this is not new teaching. Solomon prays in 1 Kings 8:39, speaking to God, "Thou alone dost know the heart of all of the sons of men." In 1 Chronicles 28:9, Solomon speaks again: "The Lord searches all hearts and understands every intent of thought." Proverbs 16:2 says, "All the ways of man are clean in his own sight, but the Lord weighs the motive."
So what does Jesus mean when He says, "Judge not, lest you be judged"? Is He saying we are never supposed to judge? He is giving us, I think, a stern warning. Are we to judge? Certainly. Matthew chapter 18 talks all about church discipline. If someone in the church is involved in ongoing sin, Jesus says this is how you are supposed to handle that, this is how you deal with it — and you have to make a judgment.
In fact, in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, Paul writes to the church and says it is reported that there is an immorality among them that is not even found among the Gentiles — a man who is sleeping with what was probably his stepmother. Here is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5:3: "For I, on my part, though absent in body, present in spirit, have already judged him who has committed this as though I were present."
What Jesus is asking them — and you, and me — to do is to let His Word be a mirror and to hold it up. And ultimately what happens when we look at the law, the law that Jesus lays down and expands for us here, is we see that we cannot live up to it. That is the teaching. Our righteousness needs to surpass that of the scribes and the Pharisees. If it does not, we are not going to enter the kingdom of heaven. They are thinking, we do not have a chance. And Jesus comes along and says, yes — let me explain that to you.
Six Illustrations: External Versus Internal
Jesus gives six illustrations where He is saying, you want to focus on the external, but I want you to look at the internal. Look at the first one in verse 21. "You have heard the ancients were told, you should not commit murder, but whoever commits murder is liable in court. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court. And whoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be guilty before the supreme court. And whoever says, you fool, shall be guilty enough to go into fiery hell."
Here is what they had been taught. It makes total sense. Exodus chapter 20, verse 13: "You shall not commit murder." So what the scribes and Pharisees had done is say, listen, we have not killed anybody. We have not stoned anyone unjustly. We have not shot anybody or stabbed anybody. We have not committed murder. And that is exactly what we would say — we have not killed anybody.
Jesus says, wait a minute. How about those character assassinations you perform? How about when you call someone Raca? We do not have an exact equivalent or translation, but the idea is this: brainless idiot, worthless fellow, silly fool, empty-headed, block-headed. Or you call somebody a fool — that is the Greek word moros, from which we get the English word moron, meaning stupid or dull. First John chapter 3, verse 15 says, "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer." That is what Jesus is doing. He is taking this to a whole new level.
Jesus is saying, listen, here are all of these people gathered together, and when you are attacking them, that is the equivalent, He says, of murder. Now He comes right back to the scribes and the Pharisees in verse 23: "If therefore you are presenting an offering at the altar, and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, go your way, first be reconciled to your brother, then come back and present the offering."
Worship and Reconciliation
If you were to ask what the scribes and Pharisees were all about, they were all about worship. They loved worship. They loved ceremonial worship. They loved to worship in a way that everybody could look at them and say, look at those men worship. What Jesus is saying is, you are missing the point. If you want to purify your worship, you must first address what is in your heart toward your brother.
The Heart Behind the Law
Regardless of who is responsible for the break in a relationship — and often there is guilt on both sides — we should determine to make a reconciliatory effort before we come to God in worship. John MacArthur writes: "True worship is not enhanced by better music or better prayers or better architecture or even better preaching. True worship is improved and enhanced by better relationships between those who come to worship." Listen to this sentence: worship may be improved by our staying away from church until we have made things right with those with whom we know our relationship is strained or broken. Paul tells us, "As far as it depends upon you, live at peace with one another."
When we come to communion every week, we try to give you this solemn warning: do not come in a manner that is unworthy. What does it mean to come in an unworthy manner? It means many things, but one of those is that you have an ongoing quarrel, battle, or sin. Do not bring it in here, He says — fix it the best you can.
MacArthur also writes that Jesus' main point here, through verse 48, is that even the best people in their hearts are sinful, and so are in the same boat with the worst of people. Not to consider the state of our heart is not to consider that which the Lord holds to be an all-important measure of true guilt. We may be innocent in a human court — we haven't killed anybody — but what He is saying is that we are guilty before God.
Adultery and the Look of the Heart
Of these six illustrations, the next one best describes what Jesus is saying. Look at verse 27: "You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart." The source of what they had heard was Exodus 20:14 and Deuteronomy 5:18 — that was the teaching they had been given.
So what is adultery? Adultery is when sexual relations occur and one or both of the parties is married to someone else. Over the years I have found that people always want a precise definition. This is particularly complicated when you have the leader of the free world saying it depends on what the meaning of "is" is, and all those sorts of things that complicate the question.
I find it fascinating when I am talking to singles who are dating — teenagers, people in their twenties and thirties — about not having sex. The question always comes back: what does that mean? How far can I go? Where is the line? And when I say that anything you would do with your sister or your brother is acceptable, that is not the line they are looking for. They want a defined boundary. These men were saying, "I haven't slept with anyone but my wife — I'm okay." Jesus says, no.
The Authority Behind the Command
Verse 28 begins with "But I." That phrasing is emphatic. Jesus is asserting that His words carry authority over those of the rabbis and the scribes. He is saying, "I am speaking with authority." He says, "Everyone who looks on a woman" — and the word "looks" is in the present participle, referring to a continuous process of looking. It is not an accidental glance, not an involuntary or unintentional glance. It is to look and look again, to stare, to begin playing all sorts of fantasies in the mind.
This gets right to the heart of the point Jesus is making. It is not lustful looking that causes sin in the heart — it is sin in the heart that causes lustful looking. Lustful looking is only the expression of a heart that is already immoral and adulterous. The heart is the soil where the seeds of sin are embedded and begin to grow.
There is an old proverb that goes like this: sow a thought, you reap an act. Sow an act, you reap a habit. Sow a habit, you reap character. Sow a character, and you reap destiny. Jesus says, "I want you to get control of what you are doing, what you are thinking."
Radical Action Against Sin
How important is this? You may be sitting there thinking, "I am struggling in this area — does Jesus have any advice for me?" Yes, here it is. "If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it away from you, for it is better that one of the parts of your body perish than your whole body be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it away from you, for it is better that one of the parts of your body perish than your whole body go into hell."
That is fairly radical, and it raises some problems for us. We are East Valley Bible Church — we take the Word of God literally, where it is meant to be taken literally. When Jesus says, "I am the door," I am not walking up to Him looking for a handle, hinges, and a key. And I do not believe the prescription Jesus is giving here is for us to literally pluck out our right eye or cut off our right hand.
The problem with a literal reading is this: if I pluck out my right eye, I still have my left eye. If I cut off my right hand, I still have my left hand. Granted, it would make identifying Christians easier at the mall — they would be walking around running into everything and eating in the food court in creative ways — but that is not what He means.
What He is saying is this: watch out for those unexpected but almost inevitable moments when your eye will be distracted, and for goodness' sake, stay away from those things you know will cause you to stumble.
Radical Action Against Temptation
Every year, about the middle of May to the first of June, I will have people call me and say, "You need to do a message telling women how to dress when they come to church." My suspicion is, ladies, that you know exactly what you're doing and you know every guy is watching and you like it. So my word to you is: stop it.
To you parents — and I understand this word is strong — I don't understand, especially you dads, how you can let your teenage girls leave the house looking like a hooker. I know that's the style. I walk through the mall and every girl I see is spending the whole day pulling her shirt down. I understand the tension. I had two girls. We fought those battles — the conversation where they wanted to wear something other than a turtleneck, and I'm suggesting a mock turtleneck as a compromise. But you parents, especially you dads who understand how men think, need to take responsibility in this area. And it is a lot of work. None of this excuses the guys.
Here is what Jesus is saying: watch out for the incidental things you cannot help, but avoid the things you know are problematic. There are things you can see coming, and you need to plan accordingly.
Stories of Avoidable Patterns
Let me tell you a story. I was teaching in Tucson, and a man came to me after one of the studies. He said, "I want to tell you something. No one knows this, not even my wife. I've had a series — not of homosexual relationships, but of one-night stands." I said, "Tell me about them. Describe one." He said, "Well, the night started innocent enough. I went to this bar, and then I went to this bookstore, and then I hooked up with this guy." I said, "Tell me the next one." He said, "Well, I went to this bar, then I went to this bookstore, then I hooked up with this guy." I said, "Tell me the next one." He said, "Well, I went to this bar, I went to this bookstore, I hooked up with this guy." I said, "Now, I want to tell you something important. I'm not trained — I certainly don't have a degree in counseling — but I would suspect it would be good for you to not go to that bar."
We had another man in one of the studies. I asked how he was doing, and he said, "I'm faithful to my wife 29 days a month." That is a problem in a lot of months, because we have 30 and 31 days. So I said, "Let's talk about it. Tell me what happens." He said, "I go bowling with these guys, and once a month after bowling, we go to a bar. After the bar, we go to a strip club, and at the strip club, I usually end up with a woman." I said, "Is it like that every time?" He said, "It's like that every month." I said, "Hmm." He said, "What should I do?" Again, I told him I'm not trained, but on those nights when the group is going to the bar, I might have my wife drop me off and pick me up.
Some of you, as you sit here right now, are planning your next sin. You are on your way out of town and you are already making arrangements. Back home, Brady Street was a big street through Davenport, and at the end of it — at what was then the outskirts, before we built up around it — there was a Holiday Inn. I remember one time they had a board out front with one of those pithy sayings, and it read: "Plan your next affair with us." Now, they may have meant a dinner or a wedding, but it certainly carries a double meaning. What I appreciate is the idea of planning. This stuff takes planning.
The Heart Behind the Law
This is what Jesus is saying. He is saying: listen, if you have to take radical action to stop this, then do not be tempting yourself. But He is also saying this — just because you can claim, "I have never slept with a woman, I have never slept with a man," you cannot claim to be innocent in His court. That is what Jesus says.
Four More Illustrations: Divorce
Now, four more illustrations, and we will move fairly quickly through them. Verse 31: "And it was said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of dismissal'; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the cause of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery."
Jesus is not teaching here on divorce. When we get to Matthew chapter 19, we will camp on that passage. What Jesus is speaking about here is that these men were saying, "Listen, I'm following the law." In Jesus' day, divorce was actually more common than in our own day. The Jewish leaders were split on the question. One camp, the very conservative one, said that except for unchastity, you could not issue a decree of divorce. The other camp — and this was the dominant thought — held that you could divorce your wife for any reason: you did not like her hair, divorce her; you did not like the way she cooked a meal, divorce her. Whatever the reason, it was permissible.
When you divorced your wife for any trivial reason, it revealed what Jesus is pointing to: the condition of your heart. God hates divorce — Malachi 2:16 — but He said that because of human sin, He would allow it in the case of adultery.
Let me jump here, because this is important. Several of the greatest moments in our ministry have been when a couple — where one or both had committed adultery — hung in there. It is not a command that they do so, but they hung in there, and I have watched what God does, and I love it. It is a great testimony to God's grace and God's mercy. What had happened in those marriages is that the heart had become hard. God had a plan for marriage. When we stand right here —
Vows and the Spirit of Marriage
In the booklets I use when doing a wedding, we talk about marriage, its purpose, and God designing marriage. Genesis 2:18 tells us that for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife — there is leaving and cleaving. Then we get to the vows: "I take you to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish as long as we both shall live." What those vows seem to anticipate is a problem or two or three — better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness or health. That is God's plan for marriage.
Because of the evilness of man's heart, God has said, "I hate divorce." It is granted in one case, but when people pursue it beyond that, they are following the letter of the law while missing its spirit entirely.
Oaths and Letting Your Yes Be Yes
Here is the next teaching, verse 33: "Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, 'You shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord.'" Verse 34: "But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by earth, for it is His footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your statement be 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no,' and anything beyond these is evil."
A question naturally arises: does this mean we should refuse to take an oath in court? Is it wrong to say, "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God?" No — there were proper oaths and vows that were made. What was happening here is that people had trivialized the practice entirely. They were swearing on everything: the temple, the earth, their mother's grave — a flippant, profane, hypocritical process. Jesus said simply: let your yes be yes and your no be no. That is exactly what James says to us as believers — we should not need to say, "I swear."
I have talked with men, and after ten or fifteen minutes of conversation, someone will say, "Let me tell you the truth." And I think — wait a minute, what about those first fifteen minutes? Was that not the truth? When someone says, "Let me be honest with you," what has he been up to until then? It is simple: let your yes be yes and your no be no.
This applies in the smallest things. If you say you will be somewhere at seven o'clock, you ought to be there at seven o'clock. Do things come up? Of course. Then pick up the phone and say it will be 7:15. Here is something that troubles me: we will plan a thank-you banquet to honor people in the church, a hundred people say they will be there, and fifty show up. If you say yes, it is yes. If it is no, it is no. That is the point Jesus is making. You do not need to run around saying, "I swear, I swear, I swear." Just do what you say you are going to do. The problem is not with the letter of the law — the problem is that you have violated its very spirit.
The Sad State of Truth-Telling
I was speaking at an event where the speaker before me was Senator George Mitchell — a senator from Maine, at one point Senate Majority Leader, and the negotiator of part of the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement. A question came up about Arafat: the Jews did not trust Arafat, and the Palestinians did not trust Sharon, with each side accusing the other of lying. Mitchell's response was, "Is anyone surprised that a politician doesn't tell the truth?" Everyone laughed. I thought, what a sad state of affairs.
On his last day in office, President Clinton struck a deal in which he had to acknowledge that he did not fully tell the truth — which sounds a great deal like lying. In his statement, the president said, "I tried to walk a fine line between acting lawfully and testifying falsely, but I recognized that I did not fully accomplish that goal." Think about that: the goal, upon waking up, was to act lawfully while testifying falsely. He finished by acknowledging "that certain of my responses to questions about Ms. Lewinsky were false." That is lying. But Jesus says no — that is not acceptable. The problem, again, is a matter of the heart.
An Eye for an Eye
The next teaching comes in verse 38: "You have heard, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist him who is evil. Whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go two with him. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you."
Exodus 21:24 gives us the original command: "An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, hand for a hand, foot for a foot, burn for a burn, wound for a wound, bruise for a bruise." That law was designed to accomplish two things. First, it served as a deterrent — if you struck someone and took an eye from them, an eye would be taken from you in return.
Going Beyond the Letter of the Law
The original idea behind the law was that a penalty would match the crime. If somebody took five dollars from you, you could not take a hundred dollars from them. This was about rights. Jesus comes along and says, "Listen, this is what you have heard, but I am saying to you..." In fact, the phrase in verse 41 spawns the cliché we have today: go the extra mile.
If somebody slaps you — it is not a punch, this is not a fight, this is a slap — somebody attacks your honor. Jesus is saying you do not need to defend yourself. If somebody sues you for your shirt, that does not mean much to us today. I am in the process of trading out my closets, moving my winter clothes for my summer clothes, and primarily what I move are shirts — shirts, plural, lots of them. The Jew in that day would have had one, maybe two shirts, and a coat, and they would not be allowed to sue for the coat, because the coat was needed for warmth and comfort.
Jesus is saying, "Listen, if somebody sues you, here is what you do: you don't have to defend your honor and you don't have to fight for your rights." If somebody asks you to go one mile, consider the context: the occupying Roman force had a rule that any Roman soldier could solicit any citizen and say, "Carry my load for one mile." It was designed to relieve the burden on the soldier, but the one-mile limit would not allow an extraordinary burden on the citizen. Jesus says go two.
Dying to Self: The Heart of the Matter
What Jesus is saying to us is exactly what Paul says in Philippians chapter 2. Paul gives us a human illustration of this in Philippians 2:5: "Have the attitude in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He emptied Himself, took the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of man and found in the appearance of man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." That is how we are to live. We are to die to ourselves.
Some of you know the name George Mueller. He is one of those great men of God, and there are all sorts of stories attached to him. One of the many things he did was run an orphanage, and there are stories of nights when there was absolutely no food — not one morsel. He would gather the orphans and the staff together and say, "Let me bless us." He would pray, "Father, thank you for this blessing," knowing full well they did not have an ounce of food. "Thank you for your provision. Thank you for your generosity. Thank you for your love. God, we are anxious to see your provision for us tonight." The stories go that there would be a knock at the door, and someone would arrive with food.
In his diary, Mueller wrote these words: "There was a day when I died — utterly died to George Mueller, to his opinions, to his preferences, and his taste and his will. I died to the world and to its approval and its censure. I died to the approval or the blame even of my brethren and friends. And since then, I have studied only to show myself approved to God."
The Approval of God Over the Approval of Men
In John chapter 12, Jesus has performed miracles and done some magnificent, astounding teaching, and there were some who believed. John chapter 12, verse 42: "Nevertheless, many, even the rulers, believed in Him. And because of the Pharisees, they were not confessing Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God."
Remember what Jesus said — the Sermon on the Mount is counterculture. In a world that says, "Look out for number one, you deserve a break today, you should have it your way, everything should go your way, you should get what you want when you want it the way you want it," Jesus comes along and says, "Listen, this is not about your freedom and independence. This is about your responsibility and your serving." And He builds right on that.
Love Your Enemies
Look at verse 43: "You have heard it 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, in order that you may be sons of the Father who is in heaven. For He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than the others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?"
The scribes and the Pharisees were quoting — and this is an important point — only partially from Leviticus chapter 19, verse 18. God had said, "You shall not take vengeance nor bear a grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor." How does that end? "As yourself." They could not fathom loving anyone the way they loved themselves, so they dropped the phrase. Here is what they said instead: "You should love your neighbor, hate your enemy." Jesus comes along and says, "No — anybody can do that. That is not the sign of a broken heart. I am saying to you, love those who persecute you. Love your enemies." He Himself hung on the cross and said, "Father, forgive them. They do not know what they are doing."
The Standard of Perfection
Then in verse 48, one author writes that this verse contains the sum of all that Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount — in fact, the sum of all He teaches in Scripture. The great purpose of salvation, the goal of the gospel, and the great yearning of the heart of God is for all men to become like Him: "You are to be perfect as your Father is perfect."
Remember the context. What is the driving force? "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees." They were saying, "We don't have a chance," and He was saying, "You really don't understand how much of a chance you don't have." Unless you are perfect. We do not like that. We love to play this game. We love the standard.
The Comparison Game
We love to say, "I'm better than him, better than her." I remember a low point in my life when I certainly wasn't a Christian, and my life would have given great evidence that there was nothing — not even a spark of hope — in it. One night I was talking to a guy and I said, "I don't think I'm good for anything." He said, "Tom, you are." I said, "Really?" He said, "Absolutely. You can always be used as a bad example. All the time I'll say to my wife, 'I'm not as bad as Tom.'" I said, "Oh, wow — well, at least I serve some purpose."
That is what we love to do: tell ourselves we are better than the next person. I read the other day that ninety percent of Harvard students are graduating with honors. How does that work? I remember sitting in classes where sixty-three was an A. All of a sudden we just grade on a curve. So we come to God and assume He is going to do the same thing — lower the standard. No. Jesus is saying the standard is perfection.
For those of us who are Christians, we cannot fully explain or begin to understand this truth, but we are seen as righteous in God's eyes. We are covered by the blood of Jesus. Is our life perfect? No. Is it getting better? Hopefully. The process is called sanctification, and there is an ultimate perfection that will take place the day we are with Jesus forever.
What Jesus Has Done in Matthew 5
Let's put a bow on this. Here is what Jesus has done in Matthew chapter 5, verses 3 through 16. He has talked about a portrait of the Christian life. He has told us that we are salt and light, that our lives should have a visible distinctiveness to them. He says, "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."
Then He says, "I did not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them." And then He says, "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." The people hearing this were thinking, "We have no chance." And Jesus is saying, "Listen, you have been deceived."
Six Illustrations, a Deeper Way to Live
Six times — six illustrations — Jesus says, "This is what you have heard." And each time He calls His listeners to a deeper way to live, a different way to live. He is not concerned about the externals alone. God hates religion if by that we mean meaningless ritual that is somehow designed in and of itself to appease a righteous and holy God.
I am not saved by my works. I am saved by grace through faith. That is the point He is making.
The Heart Behind Religious Practice
He is going to come back to this — we will look at it right after Easter. In chapter 6, verses 1 through 4, He looks at those who are giving. In verses 5 through 15, He looks at hypocrites as they pray. In verses 16 through 18, He looks at those who fast.
Jesus is not saying do not give, do not pray, do not fast. What He is saying is: do it with the right heart, do it with the right motive. Same idea, same thought. We will pick up right there.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for Your truth and Your Word. Help us resist the temptation to check a box and tell ourselves we are doing well. God, help us look at our hearts and see how deceitful and wicked we can be. Thank You for Your grace and Your mercy that saves us in spite of who we are, not because of it. Father, thank You for Jesus. We pray to You in His name. Amen.