Matthew 6:33 - 48 - Righteousness that Surpasses
Tom Shrader continues his exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, examining Jesus' teachings on oaths, retaliation, and love for enemies from Matthew 5:33-48. He explains how Jesus contrasts the external compliance of the scribes and Pharisees with true righteousness that flows from a transformed heart. The teaching emphasizes that Christians should be trustworthy without needing oaths, should not retaliate when insulted or wronged, and should love even their enemies.
“As long as you love the approval of men more than you love the approval of God, you will never be the man or woman that God wants you to be.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Sermon on the Mount
Recorded: April 11, 2002
Duration: 40 min
Themes: righteousness, love, enemies, forgiveness, integrity, retaliation, trustworthiness, transformation, dealing with difficult people, facing persecution, struggling with anger, new believer, feeling wronged, parent, navigating conflict, workplace tensions
Scripture: Matthew 5:33-48, Matthew 5:20, Matthew 5:21-22, Matthew 5:27, Exodus 21:23, Philippians 2:5, John 12, Hebrews 6:16, Psalm 132:1
Theological Themes: sanctification, sermon on the mount, righteousness, heart transformation, christian ethics, biblical morality, discipleship, spiritual maturity
Full Transcript
We are back after just a brief break into our study on the Sermon on the Mount. If you have your Bibles, you can open them to Matthew chapter 5. Let me remind you that we're looking at a section that is really the longest sermon that we have recorded that Jesus preaches.
If you look at Matthew 5, 6, and 7, and you have a red-lettered Bible where the words of Jesus are in red, you'll see that virtually all of these three chapters are in red. Jesus is talking to us about the Christian life. He begins with the Beatitudes. These are the things that ought to be present in our life. They are the characteristics that are the hallmarks of a Christian: poor in spirit, those who mourn, gentle, hunger and thirst for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers.
There's persecution that comes with that, but 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. He's not talking about persecution in general. He said when these people come at you and they persecute you and they criticize you because of your relationship with me, there's a blessedness there. There's a happiness there, a spiritual contentment in that. Then after that, He says, you are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world.
The Christian Life as Counterculture
John Stott, as he talks to us about the Sermon on the Mount, says that this is the most complete delineation of what the Christian life ought to look like that we have anywhere in Scripture. He calls it counterculture. It's a great phrase, that as we live our life, we don't even have to deliberately attempt to be different. All we have to do is live our life and we are running counter to the culture, that the Christian life at its core is essentially vastly different than the world around us.
So our beliefs become visible. A belief may be some idea, some thought, but all of a sudden it translates into values and values drive our actions. If you are a Christian and if I spend time with you, I should see a distinct difference in your life. Your Christianity should be visible in how you live.
Fundamentally, when we talk about our Christian faith and what makes us a Christian, it's fundamentally our beliefs and our doctrine. It's not what we do. You've got all sorts of religions who in many ways have the same principles that we might espouse in terms of behavior. What makes us Christians is our doctrine, not our behavior. But our doctrine translates into behavior. Because we believe this way, we must behave this way.
The Reality of True Conversion
If you have not experienced this conversion, then there's a strong likelihood that you haven't been converted at all. If your conversion is not as radical as the Apostle Paul's, in fact, let me say it stronger than that. If your conversion is not identical to the Apostle Paul's, then you aren't a Christian at all.
By that we mean there's that point in time. You may be able to single it out and say it was then. Or you may be able to say, I don't know when it was, I just know that it was. There's a point in time at which you understand, as Jesus begins, that you're spiritually bankrupt. In and of yourself there dwells no good. There is nothing in you but sin.
But Jesus comes and dies on the cross, and now we in our sin can reach out to Him as His Spirit awakens us. Now we move from sinner to saint. One of the great injustices that's done, in my mind, is when we talk about Saint Joseph and Saint Jude and Saint this and Saint that. The Scripture doesn't use the word saint that way. The Scripture uses the word saint to describe every believer.
Living as Saints
The whole process of canonization has really done a lot, I think, to deliver a message that's not accurate. You and I are expected to live a life that brings honor and glory to God. What makes us a saint is not somebody designating us that. If I'm a saint, that term is synonymous with believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So what Jesus is saying is there's a difference here. There ought to be a difference in your life. I know that sometimes I can be Johnny OneNote on some of this stuff, and I know I pound this thing a lot, but I pound it because I think, number one, because it's true. Number two, I'm trying to respond to what we see around us, and we see a lot of teaching around us and a lot of bad teaching around us and a lot of even theology around us that says all you have to do is believe and you'll be saved.
That's fine, but that belief must transform your life. You don't believe if there hasn't been life change. It seems to me we see that all through Scripture. I can see it in your practical life.
Belief Always Affects Behavior
Right now, GE stock is about 37 bucks. If you believe that GE is going to go to 60 by the end of the week, and you believe that, you're converted and you believe GE is going to be 60 by the end of the week, and you have the financial resources, you're going to be buying GE stock. On the other hand, if you've got GE stock at 37, and you're convinced that it's going to 15 by the end of the week, you're going to unload that GE stock, because your belief will affect your behavior. It always does.
You always do what you want to do. You may say, oh that's not true, I don't want to eat all this cake before me. Yes you do, or you wouldn't eat it. I mean it's as simple as that. I always do what I want to do. I may hate what I want, but I'll always do what I want to do most.
What Jesus is saying is, as a non-Christian, what I want most is sin, and I'll always sin. As a Christian, what I ought to want most is to do good. That begins this passage that flows out of probably the key verse in the whole chapter.
Matthew 5, verse 20. When we grab this verse, we've got a real sense of what's coming through the balance of this chapter. "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 these Jews heard this, they thought that they had heard something that was absolutely impossible. You remember the old saying, "If only two people could go to heaven, one would be a scribe, one would be a Pharisee."
When the Jews heard this, the common guy is saying, "Wait a minute, I've got to be more righteous than they are?" They're saying, "I've got no chance, there's no way." These guys were considered the most righteous people in the land.
The Pattern of Jesus' Teaching
That begins this series of illustrations. There are six of them that Jesus gives us, and again, take a second and remind you, there's a pattern here. You'll see a phrase, something like you see in verse 21, "You heard that the ancients were told," and then you'll hear verse 22, "But I say to you." There are six of them. We looked at the first couple.
The idea was this: this is what the ancients were told. They weren't told this by God; they were told this by one another. What Jesus is attacking here, and that's probably a fair word, what Jesus is attacking here is the belief that if I comply to the externals of the law, I'm okay. He's also attacking what's taken place where the Jewish leaders, the scribes and the Pharisees, the ones responsible for the teaching and transmission of the law, had really changed the law. That's the pattern that you see all the way through here.
Five Key Principles from This Section
Let me just remind you, we made four or five points about this section. Let me give them to you quickly.
Number one, the spirit of the law is as important, maybe more important, than the letter of the law. They're going around saying, "I haven't committed adultery," and Jesus is saying, "Wait a second, if you've looked at a woman in your heart, you've committed adultery." It's the spirit of the law beyond the letter of the law. We assume you're going to keep the letter of the law. But what Jesus is saying is, "I want to see you keep the spirit of the law."
The second thing was this, that the law is positive as well as negative. It's not just "don't commit adultery," it's not just "don't do this or don't do that," but it's to come at it in a positive way. In other words, I'm putting off the old, but I'm putting on the new. We see it in Paul's pattern in Ephesians 4. Stop lying, but tell the truth.
Here's the third thing, the law is not an end in and of itself. It's not just "I keep the law and I'm done." It's a process where that law reveals to me my sinfulness and it's what God uses in my life to help break me before Him.
Here's the fourth thing, ultimately only God can judge. Now I hate saying that for this reason. If I've got somebody and they don't know any scripture, they've never studied a Bible, they've never opened a Bible, they've never been to a church, almost inevitably they know one verse: "Judge not lest you be judged." We live at a time where nobody wants to judge anybody about anything.
Understanding Proper Judgment
Jesus is not saying here that you don't judge sin. Not saying that. We know that all through this scripture. We get a prescription. If you've got somebody and they're involved in adultery, you better judge that thing. If you're a church, you better deal with that thing.
What Jesus is ultimately saying here is, though I'm the one who's the ultimate judge, because there can be external compliance. See what He's saying here? That's what He's charging these scribes and Pharisees with. When He gets to the 23rd chapter of this gospel, Jesus just rips these guys apart. "You hypocrites! Woe to you, you hypocrites!" Why? Because externally they're complying, they're like a whitewashed tomb, they look good on the outside, but on the inside they're filled with dead man's bones. "Woe to you, scribes and hypocrites!"
It's the idea that ultimately Jesus is the judge because only He can look at a heart. In other words, I can fool you and you can fool me. We probably can't fool ourselves, but we know we can't fool God. God understands, God sees, God watches.
The last thing is that every human being is commanded to live this way. This is a standard that's out there for all of us, for you, for me, for every one of us. Not optional behavior, this is the way we're to live.
Jesus Addresses Oaths and Vows
What we looked at, verse 21 where He talks about murder, verse 27 where He talks about adultery, we begin today in verse 33. Jesus is again speaking, and as He speaks, He says this: "Again, you were told, you have heard that the ancients were told that you should not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord. But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, or for it is the throne of God, or by earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it's the city of the great king. Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black—some of you have defied that—but let your statement be yes, yes, or no, no, and anything beyond these things is evil."
Jesus is talking here about oaths. Oaths were a big deal in the Jewish law. Old Testament is filled with people taking oaths. One author writes this: "God provided a proper oath giving in His name as an accommodation to sinful human nature, which is so prone to deceit and lie. Without any prohibition, Hebrews 6:16 affirms the place of proper oath. He knows that men's inclination to lie causes them to distrust each other, and in serious situations, an oath is permissible to give greater motivation to tell the truth or to keep a pledge."
Extreme Interpretations and Context
Some people have taken where Jesus says "take no oath," some people take that to the extreme where, for example, even in a court of law, they will make no oath. They'll swear no oath, they won't swear allegiance to the country, they won't swear allegiance, they just don't make any oath, they make no pledges. What you're going to see, I think,
In all of these today, the two that we've looked at in this, Jesus is concerned here about the heart, and He's dealing with what was going on in the life of these Jews. The Old Testament's filled with David in Psalm 132, verse 1: "Oh Lord, remember David and his hardships he endured, he swore an oath to the Lord and made a vow to the mighty one of Jacob."
There were these proper oaths that we saw all through the Old Testament. It was a way, as exactly that author said, where man swears by something and it becomes a testimony to all those around him. What the Jews had done had trivialized all of this.
The Problem with Trivial Oaths
See what He said? He said, don't swear by heaven, don't swear by earth, don't make an oath on your head, don't be swearing on your mother's grave. What they'd done is trivialize all this, so the Jews weren't taking these oaths that we'd see where they're swearing to God, they would swear on these different things that somehow minimized it.
Jesus says, don't be doing that, don't be acting that way. Here's how He says you're supposed to live: let your yes be a yes and your no be a no. He said you shouldn't need a bunch of oaths. You don't need to intensify your credibility here. If you say you're going to do it, do it. It's very simple.
Living with Simple Integrity
We ought to be people who when we say something, we do it. It's fascinating to me, and I know this is a little thing, but we all the time at church, we will have sign-ups for things. Let's sign up if you're going to be here, sign up. We'll get 50 people sign up, we'll get 20 people show up. It drives me crazy.
Number one, it's bad stewardship because you plan for 50 and you have 20. I don't understand how you can say you're going to be somewhere and not be there. Now we all understand there's extenuating circumstances, but this goes not just in the big things, this goes to the little things. If you say you're going to be there at 8 o'clock, then at 8 o'clock you ought to be there. If you say you're going to do something, do it.
I had the experience not long ago, and you've had it in your life a billion times, I'm talking to this guy, we've been talking about 10 or 15 minutes, and he said, "Okay, let me be honest with you." Well I'm going, okay, now do I delete the first 15 minutes, or is this more honest?
The Heart Behind Our Words
What Jesus is looking at here, remember, is the heart, and He said your heart should not compel you to have to swear on a stack of Bibles. If you're in a situation and they're going to swear you into a court of law, take the oath, it doesn't matter, but you shouldn't have to do it, because your life is such that if you say yes, you mean yes, and if you say no, you mean no.
An Eye for an Eye
Here's the second one we'll look at this morning, verse 38: "You've heard it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you, do not resist him who is evil, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other also, and if he wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also, and whoever shall force you to go one mile, go two with him, give to him who asks for you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you."
Again, we're going to need a little bit of work and a little bit of definition in this whole process. Jesus is saying, listen, here's what you heard, and He quotes from Exodus chapter 21. Let me give you the whole quote. It's part of the law dealing with how you deal with personal injury, how we handle offenses to one another.
The Purpose of Justice
It says this, Exodus 21:23: "But if there's any further offense, then you should appoint as a penalty life for life, an eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." What God had in mind in this is really two or threefold. Number one, He's speaking here really of a governmental basis. You and I, I don't think, have the authority to go and extract penalty from one another in this sense. It's a governmental thing.
It was designed for two things. Number one, a deterrent. If you knew that justice was swift, and if you knew that justice was equal, there would be a little fear in you. You know, I was thinking about it, I can't remember why I was thinking about it, but I was sitting the other day, and I was thinking about that kid, remember the kid that they caned in Singapore? The kid that just got throttled. I wonder whatever happened to this little guy. He'd been out doing graffiti or whatever it was he was doing. I always got the sense that he was cured at that moment from graffiti. I don't know, maybe, maybe not. I know that if I steal, and I know I'm gonna lose my hand, the idea here is that it's a deterrent.
Let me tell you the other thing that it's designed to do. It's saying as you deal with this in a punitive way, you should not extract a penalty that does not fit the crime. It's regulation there.
Beyond Legal Justice to Christian Response
Jesus says, listen, that's what you've heard, and that's what you focused on, and it's an easy thing to do. All that teaching is going to do is make you a right-wing Republican. How do we make you a Christian? That's what He wants to know. How do we deal with that?
He said, here's your behavior. Here's your behavior. Don't resist him who is evil, but whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other cheek. He wants to sue you and take your shirt, give him your coat. Whoever wants you to go a mile, go two miles. Whoever needs to borrow, do it.
Understanding the Slap
I think what Jesus is saying in all those illustrations is not, if Saddam Hussein attacks you, you don't defend yourself. A slap is very different than a punch. A slap on the right cheek was one of the most demeaning acts of aggression on one's personal honor and dignity that you can have. How dare you insult me? And Jesus is saying, listen, if somebody attacks your honor, you don't have to defend it. I don't think He's saying literally, here you go, you missed this side. I think He's saying, listen, you don't have to defend yourself.
in that situation. If somebody sues you, and the idea here is that they want to sue you for your shirt. When they sued you, basically you had this. In that day and age, you had a shirt, maybe two. I just did a thing the other day where we're turning closets. I just turned the spring and summer closet for the winter closet. And it is really embarrassing how much stuff I have. It's really sad. I mean, there's just a lot of stuff.
Well, that wasn't the case in that culture. You had a shirt, maybe two, and then you had an outer garment. If I were to sue you, and if part of the solution was for me to get something from you, I could get your shirt, but not your coat. Your coat was so valuable to your existence, and your existence so dependent upon that coat for protection, even to sleep on, all the things that go with it, that never could you take the coat. Jesus is saying, listen, if they sue and they want your shirt, you give them the coat. You throw the coat in, it's the deal.
In fact, if somebody asks you to go a mile, you go an extra mile with them. Now, that means nothing to us. But the Romans could do this. Remember, they were an occupying force. A Roman could solicit any citizen to carry their backpack for a distance not to exceed a mile. The idea was it was relief for the soldier, and it was not an excessive burden on the citizen. That constantly Rome was soliciting people. Remember, as Jesus is carrying the cross on, Simon of Cyrene is solicited in that.
Here's what Jesus is saying. Because by law, all they could do is ask you to go a mile. That's all they could do. Jesus is saying, if they ask you to go one, go two. Here's the phrase, go the extra mile. But Jesus is saying, listen, if they solicit you and they want this, you go one more. If they want to borrow, you don't deny them.
The Deeper Meaning Behind Non-Retaliation
What is Jesus saying here? Is He trying to turn us into a nation of pacifists? Is He trying to say to you that, listen, if somebody sues you, you don't defend yourself. If somebody solicits you, you do whatever anybody asks. If they want to borrow, you give it to them. Is that what He's saying?
I don't think so. I think what He's saying is this. You don't need to retaliate to defend your honor. You don't need to worry about your dignity. You don't need to be concerned about protecting yourself or your rights or your stuff or absorbed in this. You don't need to worry about that. I'll take care of those things for you.
Jesus modeled this. Paul writes in Philippians 2, verse 5, that He did not, He, Jesus, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He emptied Himself, not of His deity, but of His glory and became obedient, found in the appearance of man. He became obedient, and He humbled Himself.
A Countercultural Way of Living
This is so, we're talking about counterculture. This is diametrically opposed to the culture we live in. This is totally counterculture, because you live in a culture that says, defend your rights, defend your rights, defend your rights, defend your rights, and never talking about responsibility.
I don't have the quote with me, but I've got a great quote from John F. Kennedy's diary in 1946. And I'll paraphrase, but it's pretty close. He says, I fear that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he was right, by the way, has done much to interfere with capitalism and progression, not because of any laws that he's passed, but because of his emphasis on rights over responsibility. That's a quote from John F. Kennedy. You don't hear that one at the Democratic National Convention very often.
But you live in a time that's obsessed with, it's funny, you play with your kids or your grandkids, and all of a sudden, some little thing goes wrong. You know what you'll hear them say so often? Let's sue them. Let's sue them. Jesus is saying, listen, that ought not be your flinch.
George Mueller's Example of Dying to Self
George Mueller, and you may or may not know that name, George Mueller was a man who I know is a man of great prayer and great trust in God. There's some magnificent stories of Mueller. One of the things that he had was an orphanage in London, and frequently, he had no resources. There are stories of him sitting with the orphans and saying, all right, let's pray, let's say grace, and they would not have one ounce of food in the kitchen. And he would pray, and they'd pray, Father, thank you for this meal. Thank you for what's going to happen. There'd be a knock on the door, and in would come the food.
George Mueller said this at one point in his life. There was a day when I died utterly to George Mueller, to his opinions, his preferences, his taste, his will. I died to the world and to its approval and its censure. I died to the approval or blame of even my brethren and friends, since I have studied only to show myself approved unto God. That's what Jesus is talking about. He's talking about dying to yourself.
Mueller said this, and there's kind of three steps in there. He said, I died to myself. I died to my own views. I died to my own opinions. I died to my own preferences. I also had died to the world. I didn't care what the world thought. And I even died to fellow Christians.
The Root Issue: Pride vs. God's Approval
There's a scene in Jesus' life where Jesus is foretelling His death, and He's speaking there, and obviously, as is the case often, there's unbelievers there. And in John chapter 12, you don't need to turn, but I'll read it to you. John chapter 12, the section closes this way. Nevertheless, many, even the rulers, believed in Him. But 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.
Men and women, as long as you love the approval of men more than you love the approval of God, you will never be the man or woman that God wants you to be. God is opposed to the proud and gives grace to the humble. I have no idea, many of you, of even who you are, but I can tell you your besetting sin is pride. It's the ultimate vice. It's what moves you in so many different ways.
So much of that pride comes from worrying about what other people think. There's a sense in which we have to be concerned, and we should be concerned. We don't want to be unnecessarily offensive, all those things. But my opinions, my action, my teaching, the way I live my life cannot be driven by other people, or even what they think.
That's what Jesus is saying. Don't be worrying about this stuff. Don't be worrying about these people and what they're going to say.
Love Your Enemies
The last thing Jesus talks about is love. Again, you are in a time where it's just a foreign concept to talk about love. We try to define it, and we put it in human terms, and we never really get our arms around what it means.
Jesus said this: "You have heard it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemy 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 gatherers 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? Therefore, you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect."
He talks about love. We look at verse 43: "You've heard it said," and again, this is now the teaching of the scribes and the Pharisees. It's not quoting from the law here. There's no way that Jesus would quote scripture and say, "But I'm saying something else to you." He's quoting the teaching of the scribes and the Pharisees.
The Missing Words
"You have heard it said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." What strikes you when you read that or hear that read? There's an omission there. What's missing?
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself." See, there's the teaching. The teaching was, love your neighbor as yourself. Well, the scribes and the Pharisees had just dropped that little phrase, "as yourself." They couldn't fathom that. These guys were obsessed and filled with self-righteousness and pride. They delineated that.
Remember, these were the pros. They knew every jot, every tittle, every letter. They knew the law inside out. They knew what it said, but they changed it. "Don't just love your neighbor as yourself. Just love them. You're never going to be able to love with the depth that you love yourself. Love your neighbor and hate your enemy." That's a total perversion of what Jesus was saying.
William Hendrickson writes this, speaking of Jesus: "All around Him were those walls and fences He came for the very purpose of busting through those barriers so that love, pure, warm, divine, infinite love, would be able to flow straight down from the heart of God, hence from His own marvelous heart to the hearts of men. His love overlapped all boundaries of race, nationality, party, age, and sex. When He said, 'I tell you, love your enemies,' He must have startled the audience, for He was saying something that they'd probably never heard said before so succinctly, positively, and forcefully."
A Revolutionary Command
Jesus says, "Listen, they may have talked to you about hating your enemies. I'm telling you, you love your enemies." They'd never heard anything like this before. "You pray for those who persecute you."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was ultimately executed for his faith by the Nazis, said this: "The supreme demand through the medium of prayer is that we go to our enemies, stand by them, and plead to God for them." That's what He's talking about.
He said, "Here's what you've heard. Listen, you've heard love your neighbor, love those that are good to you." He said, "What's the point of that? Even the tax gatherer does that. Even the tax gatherer is nice to people who are nice to him." What good is it if you reach out to those who are good and kind and gentle to you? There's nothing meritorious in that. He does that. The biggest pagans in the world do that. But now, love your enemy. Now, love those who persecute you. Now, love those who put you down.
Be Perfect as Your Father Is Perfect
And then verse 48, and we close with it today: "Therefore you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect."
Let me read to you what James Montgomery Boyce says about this verse: "I believe that this verse is the most important verse in the Sermon on the Mount. It's the climax or the first of the sermon's three chapters, and it's the midpoint, the pinnacle from which much of the later teaching flows. I believe that if you understand this verse, speaking of Matthew 5:48, if you understand this verse, you understand the essence of all that Jesus is teaching. And what is more, you understand the heart of the Christian Bible and the heart of God and the gospel."
When He says, "be perfect as your Father is perfect," what is He saying to us? Three things. Number one, He's acknowledging that God has already made the record perfect. When God sees us as believers, and this is in a sense mysterious to us, and certainly hard to grasp because it's abstract, when God sees us as Christians, He sees us and declares us righteous.
Remember the triangle? We've used the triangle before. You have Jesus here, you have us here, you have God the Father here. Jesus, in His death on the cross, extends to the Father propitiation. He satisfies God's wrath. He satisfies the judgment of sin, so that when Christ is on the cross, He's treated as though He's guilty, even though He isn't. Well, when the wrath of God is satisfied, what is extended to us is a declaration of righteousness, or we're justified before God. So when He's talking about be perfect, He's talking about a condition,
The Christian Life as Continuous Growth
First, this is a declaration of God. Secondly, He's talking about this continuing work in our life. I was in the computer room the other day at our house, and I closed the door. In the back, on the wall, the wall's papered except for a section that's just drywall. That section is where we've measured the girls since they were little. You'll see scribble on it, but what you'll see is a name and a date and a line showing their height. You'll see Sarah here, Haley here, and you'll see them at that date and their height.
I happened to be looking at it the other day, probably thinking about weddings and daughters leaving and all the stuff that goes with it. As I was sitting and looking at it, I was noticing a couple of things. Sometimes there'd be a period of three, four, five months between measurements, but it wasn't regular that we'd do it—never longer than a year, never shorter than six months. There'd be a period of six months where maybe they'd grow this much, but sometimes over six months or nine months, they'd grow that much. Sometimes they'd grow this much, sometimes that much, but they always grew. There was never a point on there where they shrank.
I think that's the perfect physical description of what your Christian life ought to be. There are always going to be times when I may sometimes grow this much, I may sometimes grow this much, sometimes this much, but I'm always growing.
The Paradox of Growing in Holiness
There's a funny paradox in the Christian life. Clearly, I'm sinning less now, at least I should be, than I was five years ago. Yet there's a sense that I'm sinning more. As I draw closer to Him, clearly there ought to be less sin in my life, but what's happening is my perception and understanding of what sin is has grown so much that it looks like and feels like I'm sinning more.
That's what He's saying. The process He's talking about here is the work of sanctification—that I'm being conformed to the image of God. Here's the last thing: I'll ultimately be perfect when I'm with Him. There is that point in time coming when I will die, I will leave this earth, and I will be with Christ forever. Perfect, no sin.
You ever think about that? Everything you do on this earth, and everything we do in our relationship with God, we will do in heaven and do it better. Our study will be pure, our prayer will be pure, our worship will be pure. Everything we do here, we'll do there, except for one thing. We evangelize here; there'll be no evangelism in heaven. If you're an evangelist, you better get it out of your system right now.
Jesus' Revolutionary Teaching
So here's the bow on verses 21 through 48. Jesus is saying, "Listen, you've heard it said you shouldn't commit murder. I'm saying, have you ever been angry with your brother? You've heard it said you shouldn't commit adultery. I'm saying, have you ever looked at a woman?" He's saying there shouldn't be this idea of divorce, and He's giving it to us to protect us and to purify us.
He's saying, "Listen, don't take oaths," and He's saying, "Do you tell the truth?" He's saying, "Are you vengeful? Are you defending yourself?" And He's saying, "I'll take care of that." He's saying, "Love your neighbor." He's saying, "Love your enemies." That's the Christian life.
I don't think I do a very good job of adequately explaining the dynamic of this teaching, because He's saying this is contrary to the whole culture around you.
The Scribes and Pharisees: A Shocking Reality
These scribes and Pharisees that we see as bad guys were indeed bad guys in Jesus' mind, but they were also—let me tell you a couple of things as we close. They were evangelistic, they were givers, they were men of prayer, and they studied their Bible. That's what we know about them. They were evangelistic in the way they lived, they were givers, they were men of prayer, and they studied their Bible.
Those are the things that they try to tell you to do to live your Christian life. Now these guys are doing them. What the heck is the difference here? Next week we pick up right there, and He's going to tell us. He's going to talk about these areas beginning next week in Matthew 6:1.
Prayer
Father, help us see this. Help us see this truth and understand it. It's hard stuff, and it's just repetitive in its nature, but it's there for a reason. I think it's there because we apparently need to hear this message again and again and again and again and again.
We shouldn't fall into the trap of looking at the outside, because You look at the heart. We shouldn't fall into the trap of trying to evaluate everybody's actions, because we don't know the motive. God, ultimately what You're saying to us is we don't need to be worrying about the people to our left and right and those around us. We need to be looking at ourselves. How do we live? Does this describe our hearts that have been changed? Can we be trusted with the truth? Does our first instinct start to defend ourselves when others attack us?
God, let us be men and women who trust You with our honor, our dignity, our reputation, who trust You with all of our stuff, our material goods. God, let us be men and women who love the way You love. We can't do it apart from Your Spirit. We don't do it to find pleasure with You, to find merit with You for salvation. We do it because we're saved. God, do that work in our life. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
Have a great week. We'll see you next week.