Sermon on the Mount
Sermon on the Mount Week 10
March 28, 2021 • Shane Sikkema • Matthew 7:13–29
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning. Welcome again to Mosaic. It's good to see you this morning. If you're new, welcome, my name is Shane. I am one of the pastors here at Mosaic, and so glad to have you with us. As we mentioned earlier, we would love to connect with you. The way we do that is through a little connection card. You should have gotten one of those with your worship guide on the way in. If you fill that out for us, you can just drop it in the little white box back there at the back of the room on your way out this morning, and we'd love to follow up with you this week and just send a small gift to you in the mail to thank you for being with us. You can also fill that out online or in our app as well. Before we start, happy Palm Sunday to everyone. This is the first day, the beginning of a holy week. We have a couple of special service times coming up just to remind you of before we jump into the sermon. First of all, this Friday we're having a good Friday service at 6:00 PM here at the temple. Childcare will be provided for kids up through fifth grade, and so if you have kids that want to participate in that, just jump on our website and fill out the little registration form, that way we can know how many children to prepare for, but looking forward to that. We'd love to see you back here Friday night for that service. Then Easter Sunday, this is really important. We're having three services, and as we've mentioned in the last couple of weeks, they're all going to be at different times than usual. Our first service is going to be at 8:30. We're going to have a full-blown mini-Mosaic program and Mosaic teens at this service, so families with kids, this will be a great option for you. Second service is going to be at 10:15. This service is also going to have childcare mini-Mosaic up through fifth grade. We're anticipating this is going to be our largest, most popular service. If you're planning to come on this one, you might want to come early to make sure that you get a seat. Really, the reason we're expanding to three services, we just really want to make sure that with all the distancing requirements, that we don't run out of space next week. But our final service is going to be at 12 o'clock noon. Go get brunch, come and join us at 12 o'clock if you want to join us for that third service. Really, whatever service you're able to attend is great and just look forward to celebrating with you next Sunday morning. But with that being said, let's pray before we start the sermon this morning. God, we thank you for this amazing section of scripture and the time that we've been able to spend in the sermon on the mount over the last several weeks, and Lord, we thank you that you have spoken to us through your son, the living word, and Jesus Christ, and you've also spoken to us through your scriptures, the written word. As we look into your word again today, Lord, we ask that you would humble us and give us ears to hear what you have to say, our minds and hearts that are open that are humble to you. God, your word is good, it is perfect, it is without air, and it is authoritative, but also beautiful and beneficial. It is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, and so Holy Spirit, we ask that you would come and illuminate this path for us, so that we can stay on this narrow way that leads to life, following after Christ, following that path that he has blazed on before us. We pray all this in his name, amen. Today we're wrapping up our sermon series on the sermon on the mount. We're going to be looking at Jesus conclusion to the sermon on the mount. If you've ever studied homiletics, if you've ever studied public speaking, you know the importance of your introduction and your conclusion. These are the two most important parts of any address that you make. They're kind of like the takeoff and the landing. In your introduction, really, you're earning the right to be heard by your audience. Right now, you're here. You're about to sit down and hear me talk for the next 40 minutes or so, but I understand that just because you can hear my voice doesn't mean you're actually listening to what I have to say. I got to earn that right to keep your attention. It helps a lot, if in your introduction, you can give people some kind of hook that's going to show them that what you're about to say is worthy of that time and attention. Even before I start preparing for a sermon, I like to keep this phrase in mind, don't preach because you have to say something, preach because you have something to say. A good introduction, it lets people know that you're about to say something that's worth saying, something that is worth hearing. In Jesus' introduction, he gives us this little hook. It's like a bombshell of a statement. You remember what He said when He starts the sermon, He says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." It's really unexpected, and yet, it's powerful, it's intriguing. It's maybe even a little bit perplexing, but all right, Jesus, you got my attention. I want to see like where you're going to go with this. Not only is it a really good hook, it's really relevant to everything else that he has to say. It's almost like this is the key that unlocks the rest of the sermon on the mount. Now, if you understand what Jesus is saying here, you're going to get the rest of the sermon, but if you don't, a lot of what Jesus is going to say that follows is going to be puzzling. Jesus had a great take off. What about his conclusion? Well, how does Jesus land the plane? That's what we're looking at today. It lands like ... You've probably heard sermons that nose dive and crash and burn on the landing. Not here at mosaic, but at other churches perhaps. Jesus lands, it's like an atomic bomb, just boom explosion, fire everywhere. He walks down the mountain like an action hero. Doesn't even look back at all the minds that he just blew behind him. How does he do this? He does this by turning to his listeners, turning to us, and asking us, how are you going to land the plane? How are you going to land, not the plane of the sermon, how are you going to land the plane of your life? Every single one of us, from the moment we're born, we are on our descent, and we're flying through the turbulence of life, and the runway of death is coming closer and closer with every moment. This is what we need to consider. This is what we need to ponder. When the rubber hits the road, are you going to make a smooth, peaceful landing, or are you about to crash and burn? How much time do you spend thinking about eternity? What do we expect to find on the other side of death? Where do we go when we die? These might sound like cliche questions, but these are the most important questions that anyone could ask, and these are the questions that Jesus wants us to consider today in the conclusion to a sermon. If you have your Bibles, open up to Matthew 7, I'm going to be looking at verses 13 through 29, the end of Jesus' sermon. As we work through this text today, I want us to focus on these three points that Jesus drives home here in His conclusion. First of all, there are only two paths. There are only two directions. Then thirdly, there are only two destinations. Read along with me. If you don't have a Bible, you can follow along and the words will be up here on the screen as well. This is Matthew 7 beginning in verse 13. Jesus says, "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the disease tree bears bad fruit. Healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit nor can a disease tree bear good fruit." "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father, who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?" And I will declare to them, "I never knew you. Depart from me you workers of lawlessness." Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock." "The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock, and everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell, and great was the fall of it." When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astonished at his teaching. For he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes." This is the reading of God's Holy word for us this morning. Point number one is that there are only two paths, and Jesus begins by telling us, you need to enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. There are two identical Proverbs in the book of Proverbs, Proverbs 14:12, and 16:25, and they both say this, "That there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death." What are these two paths that Jesus is talking about? Well, let's start out by what is the path that leads to life? What is Jesus talking about there? If you were here last Sunday night at our prayer service, one of our members, Nathan Young, he brought a great message on this from John 14:6, where Jesus tells His disciples that, "I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the father except through me. Peter and John preached this in Acts 4. They said that, "This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone," in verse 12, "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven among men by which we must be saved." Jesus is the narrow gate. He is the only path to salvation. What that means is that the broad road to destruction, that is anything and everything else, and we hear that and we say, that's so exclusive, and it is. Jesus acknowledges that. Jesus says the gate is narrow. But before we can begin to object, we have to first ask, what are the alternatives? Romans 3:23 tells us that, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 6:23 says that, "The wages of the sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus, our Lord, that Jesus being the only way, it sounds exclusive, it is exclusive, but the alternative is that there is no way. No way at all. That we are all sinners, we are all guilty and we are all incapable of saving ourselves. We have all sinned again and infinitely just, and Holy God. The chasm that we need to cross is infinite. Think about this, only Jesus, in his complete perfection and full divinity was worthy and able to pay the penalty that our sin and rebellion deserved, and yet only Jesus, because of his full humanity could stand in humanity's place to be that atoning substitution. There could be no other way. It had to be Jesus. For Jesus to say, I am the way, I am the only way. I'm the truth. I am the life. I am the narrow gate. It excludes any other means of salvation, and yet, at the same time, it is more inclusive of any other alternative because the gate is narrow. But entering through this gate is open to all. It's free. That the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, offered to all, to any who would repent and put their faith in Him and cry out to Christ for salvation. This is what scripture says. We know this, John 3:16, one of the most famous verses in scripture, "That God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." Romans 10:11, the scripture say, "Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame, for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." You don't have to be born into a certain ethnicity. You don't have to have a spiritual, a pedigree. You don't have to go and achieve self-actualization or enlightenment. You don't have to climb to the peak of some holy mountain to offer sacrifice or maintain a life of perfection to be saved. You simply call on the name of Jesus and you will be saved. Believe, confess, cry out to Christ and say, no matter where you are, no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, you will be saved. Look at verse 14 again. It says that, "The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." This is important to understand. Jesus acknowledges the gate is narrow, and yes, it is free to enter by that gate, but the road that follows is not going to be easy. Jesus says, it's going to be hard, that the Christian life is hard. If it's not hard, then perhaps you're not actually on the path that you think that you're on. We've heard this phrase, that salvation costs us nothing, and yet discipleship costs us everything. This is Christianity 101, that we are justified freely by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, and yet, the lifelong work of sanctification of putting our flesh to death, it's hard. The lifelong work of engaging and carrying out the mission of God and living our lives as witnesses to the gospel and the kingdom of God, it costs us a lot. Following Jesus comes with trouble, tribulation, persecution. It takes perseverance. It takes patience. It is not a broad easy road. It's a road of self-denial. It's a road of self-discipline. It's a road of laying down your life and picking up your cross daily and following after Jesus. It is all of those things, but it's also worth it. It is the road that leads to life and there is no other way. What this means is that, if we are walking this path as Christians, we should stand out and seem very distinct from the rest of the world around us, as if we are walking in a complete opposite direction against the flow of everything that surrounds us. We live in a world that follows this cultural mantra of like, you only live once, and so have a good time all the time, get the most out of life while you can. In scripture would put it like this, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. We say things, we hear things like, life is about the journey, not the destination. To go with pastor Jan, false. That's a false statement. Not true. If it is true, if life is really only about the journey, then yeah, go spend your life on yourself, get the most out of this life while you can, because this is all you'll ever get. You can do this in a number of ways. You can do this through living a life of rebellion and sin of just seeking self-gratification and earthly pleasure. Or you can do this the way the Pharisees did this through practicing your righteousness before people. Not because you love God, but to be honored and respected by others, that they'll look and say, oh, look at that person. They're so virtuous. They're so right. Jesus would say, to either of these approaches like, great, but you've received your reward in full, that whatever satisfaction you got out of that is all you will ever get, and your best days will now forever be in the past. Jesus calls us, as his followers, to a different kind of journey, a journey that doesn't begin with discovering ourselves, with finding ourselves, but with losing ourselves. It begins with humility. It begins with repentance and faith, and acknowledging that Jesus paid it all. So, all to him I owe. I am not my own, but I belong body and soul to God and to my savior, Jesus Christ, and therefore, my life, my time, my talents, my treasures, these are not mine to be spent on myself in this life. These are mine given as a steward from God to be invested for the sake of the next. Knowing that in Christ, the best is always yet to come. Now, we heard this a few weeks ago. Jesus put it like this in Matthew 6:19. He says, "Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, where thieves do not break in and steal." Now, if we live this way, apart from faith, this kind of investing in eternity, it doesn't make sense. It seems foolish. Right, you're denying yourself something right now and you're betting your life on something that you can't even see. From the perspective of the world, it seems like folly. Jesus talks about it like this, that the kingdom of God, it is like a treasure, but it's like a treasure that's buried in a field, and not everybody can see it, but once you discover it, once you see what's there, you're willing to go and sell everything you have to acquire that field, because you know what's inside it, and everyone else might look at you and think you're crazy for the price that you're willing to pay, but you know the return on that investment. Imagine like this. Imagine I had a time machine right here and I was willing to sell you a ticket, but it came with some strings attached. First of all, you could only use it to go backwards in time. Secondly, you could only stay there for five minutes. Third, it's only capable of bringing you maximum like 10 years into the past. Then finally, this ticket is going to cost you everything that you have, every penny to your name. You would probably think, well, that sounds very novel, but it's probably not a good investment. Not worth the cost of that. But let me remind you, 10 years ago, you could convince your former self to buy Bitcoin, which was like less than a dollar at the time. If you could scrounge $10,000 $15,000 to go, you would be a billionaire today, and so yes, of course I would make that investment, but this is what I'm getting at, that the kingdom of God is a better investment than that. This is not financial advice. I'm not your financial advisor, but this is spiritual advice. I am a spiritual advisor of sorts. Jesus is talking about eternal stocks here. Don't miss this opportunity to invest in eternity, is a sure bet, and it's hard. It's going to be costly. It may cost everything you have, but you're investing in something that will never tarnish, that will never fail. This is why 2 Corinthians 4:16 sells us that we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day, for this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. As we look not to the things that are seen, but to think things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are seen are eternal. There are only two paths. Point number two, there are only two directions. Jesus continues in verse 15. He tells us, "Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You'll recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the disease tree bears bad fruit." "A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit nor can a disease tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?" And I will declare to them, "I never knew you. Depart from me you workers of lawlessness." In this passage, we see that these two paths results in two very different destinations, and so therefore, Jesus, here in the middle, wants us to be careful that we not lose our sense of direction, that we make sure that we know where we're going, to not only know what the right path is, but to know how to know when we are on that right path. Some of you might be too young to remember this, but way back in the day, before smartphones, before Google Maps, before big tech was tracking our every move, if you were going on a road trip with your friends or something, like you had to have a physical map made out of paper in order to figure out where you were going. What you would do is you'd go to the gas station or something, you would buy a map of whatever area you were trying to travel to, and you'd jump on the back of your Brontosaurus and you'd take off on your journey. It was great. The map could show you what was there, but the map could not show you where you were in relation to what was there. The map could not tell you what road you were on or what direction you were going. You had to figure that out for yourself. What that meant is you had to like look out at the road and look for the signs along the way that say, this is the road that you're on, and this is the direction that you're going, North, South, East or West. What that meant is there would be these times, it's never happened to me, but maybe it happened to some of you, where you would be on the right road. You thought, I'm on I-80. I'm good to go. I set the cruise control. I can kick back and relax. Then like an hour later, you notice, hey, that sign says there's an I-80 with a little E on it. I was supposed to be on I-80 with a little W after it. I've just driven a sixth of the way across the country in the wrong direction. If it wasn't for the sign, I wouldn't have known that I'm actually lost. How do you know when you're on the right path? That's what Jesus' wanting us to get at here. What are the signs to look for? We're going to talk about that in a minute, but first, Jesus warns us that, if that's not bad enough, there's false signs out there pointing in the wrong direction. He says, "Beware of false prophets." There are people trying to lead you astray, telling you that this is the way to go and actually pointing you in a way that is the opposite. This was a problem back then, this is a major problem today. We live in a day and age where, because of things like social media, anybody and everybody can have a platform and gather a following. On the one hand, this means there's a lot of good, useful content out there, Christian teaching available online. It also means there's a lot of horrible, deceptive, false content out there, false prophets, people who are claiming to present the truth with authority, and yet they are leading people in the wrong direction. Some of these people, they can be religious. Some of these people are irreligious. Churches used to worry a lot about the false teachers that people would see on TV, the televangelist, the snake oil salesmen, the charlatans preaching their prosperity gospel. That's something we need to be concerned of and discerning about and look out for as Christians. But today, we don't honestly see many people being deceived by the cookies, people that we see on Christian television. Instead, what we see is there's a lot of people are being led astray in other ways, the political causes, activists, personalities, celebrities, talk show hosts, influencers, even teachers and professors, and Jesus warns us that it's not always going to be obvious who these people are. Don't assume that you know what they're going to look like, because they're going to look like sheep on the outside. When you look up a little closer, you see that they're actually ferocious wolves. He's warning us, you need to be cautious, you need to be careful who you follow. You need to be wise and discerning so that you can tell the difference. Now, you're going to need community around you to help you with this. You're going to need to know God's word and filter everything through that. We have a great example of this in Acts 17. Acts 17:10 tells us that, "The brothers sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now, these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so." On the one hand, they're open, they're teachable, they're eager to learn, and that the other hand, they're discerning. They're taking everything they hear from Paul and Silas, and they're filtering it through God's word to see if these things are so. We need to do that as Christians with everything that we hear. Galatians 1 gives us this warning in verse six, and Paul tells the church, "I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be cursed." Colossians 2:8 says, "See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of this world and not according to Christ." Jesus says, watch out for false prophets, don't be fooled by false teachers. But secondly, He's also telling us, don't even be fooled by yourself. Don't be self-deceived. This is where things get kind of scary. Jesus says, "Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven. Not everyone who calls me Lord or even does ministry in my name is actually a Christian." Some people are going to go through their life self-deceived thinking that they are serving Christ, and when they stand before him in the judgment, He's going to say, "I never knew you and depart from me." This is sobering. This should cause us to examine ourselves. Now, as Christians, this doesn't mean that we should live in doubt of our salvation, but the alternative is not to have this carefree, blind assumption that we are saved either. What are we to do? Scripture doesn't want us to assume our salvation, but what it wants us to do is to seek assurance of our salvation. What does that mean? How can we have a surety that we are truly saved? That's what Jesus is getting at here. He says, you want to know the tree? You got to look at its fruit. If there's evidence of the Holy Spirit's work in your life, that's a pretty good sign that you've been truly born again, that God has saved you, that you are a new creation. Now, if you don't see that, if these signs aren't here, maybe you're saved, maybe you're not. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're not saved, but it doesn't mean that you lack assurance of your salvation. How do we find this? What are we looking for here? A couple of passages of scriptures to help us out, 2 Peter 3, 2 Peter 1:5-10, and Peter says this, "That for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord, Jesus Christ." "For whoever lacks these qualities is so near-sighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. For if you practice these qualities, you will never fail." When you identify this trajectory of growth in your life, that's a good sign that you're heading in right direction, that you're confirming your calling and election. Galatians 5:16-24, the apostle Paul talking of the fruit of the spirit. He says, "I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you're led by the spirit, you're not under the law. Now, the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these, I warn you as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things, there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the Lord with its passions and desires." Are you growing in the fruit of the spirit? Notice, he doesn't say fruits of the spirit, plural, this is not like an a la carte, pick and choose which ones you want to grow, and this is an all or nothing. You don't have to be accrued in order to have a bit of self-control or to show a bit of kindness. One or two of these things does not give us assurance of our salvation in and of themselves. Our assurance grows when we see that all of these things, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, they are growing in tandem, not because of our own willpower, or the work of the flesh, but because of the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. The big idea here is that Jesus doesn't want us to be doubting, but he does want us to be discerning, because we can be deceived by others. We can even deceive ourselves, but God is not deceived. He knows the state of our heart. Galatians 6:7-8 says, "Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever one sows that he will also reap. For the one who sows to his on flesh will, from the flesh, reap corruption." "But the one who sows to the spirit will, from the spirit, reap eternal life." 2 Corinthians 13:5 tells us, "To examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith." Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves? That Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you fail to meet the test." If Christ is not in you, then that's where you need to start, right? You don't start by trying to tuck healthy looking fruit onto a dying tree. Instead, you start by calling out to Jesus and asking him to make you a new tree, to change you from the inside out to give you a new one heart and a new desire by the power of his Holy Spirit. Now, if you examine yourself and you do see this, you see the Holy spirit at work in your heart, you take heart because of that, know that you are on the right path, and that, even if that path is very difficult at times, it doesn't mean that Christ is not there with you. He is with you and he's ensuring that you will arrive at your destination. We see this in Philippians 2:12. It tells us, "To work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." A chapter earlier, in chapter verse six, Paul wrote that, "I am sure of this, that he who began and a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." There are only two paths, there are only two directions, and point number three, there are only two destinations. Jesus concludes in verse 24 with this, says, "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock, and everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came and the wind blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it." "When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astonished at his teaching for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes." Many of you know I was born and raised in Illinois, and in the Midwest, thunderstorms are like a very real thing. They're very long, they're very loud, they're very violent, and they always came with this looming threat of tornadoes. As a kid, I was simultaneously fascinated and completely utterly terrified of tornadoes the entire time growing up. You'd hear those sirens go off in your neighborhood, and everybody knew you had to stop what you're doing and you had to get to shelter. You had to find someplace stable, someplace safe, and that usually meant you need to get down into the basement, into the foundation of your home for safety. Notice that Jesus doesn't say that, if you hear these words of mine and you do them, that you will therefore avoid all of the storms of life. No, he says the storms are coming, they're coming for everyone, and that they come in many forms. A family member gets sick, a job gets lost, the economy tanks, or relationship falls apart. Even if we dodge these smaller storms of life, there's always that one storm looming on the horizon. Now, the biggest storm is the storm of death. It's one that none of us can escape. It's coming and it's getting closer with every breath. How are we going to weather that storm? Jesus says, it doesn't matter what you build. The only thing that matters is where you build, what you build on. He says, if you're building your life on me and on my teaching, you're like a wise person who's building on an unshakeable foundation. I hope you understand this. As Christians, we have this piece. It's like an anchor for our soul. It transcends the circumstances of life and death, because we know that, even if the very worst were to come true, our worst fears were to be actualized, if everything was lost and death was at our doorstep, even then, our hope is not in this life. Our hope is in the next. Our soul is standing on a foundation that can't be shaken, that can't be moved, that will not give way. We know this because Jesus proved this through the cross. On the cross, Jesus faced our biggest, our darkest storm. Not a storm of life, not even a storm of physical death, but of total death. The fierce storm of God's wrath toward rebellion and sin was poured out and absorbed by Jesus on the cross. The scripture tells us, the sky grew dark, that the earth quaked on the day that our savior died, but it was through this, his death, that we were granted eternal life. It was through this storm that he faced, that we are able to weather the storm ourselves, because through his death, Jesus defeated Satan, sin, and death. That God, the father, three days later, raised him up in victory and just vindicated him from the grave, glorified him at his right hand, and in doing so, he proved that he can and he will do the same for us, for all those who build on this foundation. Well, where does this lead us? Jesus is calling us to make a decision, decisive action. There are only two options. There are only two paths. There are only two destinations. This is what he's saying, you're either going to build on me, on this foundation, or you're going to continue trusting in the sandy shores of self-righteousness of worldly pleasures of living for yourself. Sermon on the mount, in the very beginning, in Matthew 5:1, we're told that, "Jesus saw the crowds and he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them." Then here at the very end of this section, we're told that, "When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes." Perhaps you have been standing in the crowd, observing Jesus from a distance. Right now you realize that it's time to leave the crowd and to draw near to Christ as one of his disciples. Jesus had a lot of fans in the crowd. He was never interested in fans. Fans come and go. We're reminded of this a bit today because today is Palm Sunday, and we can't prove this, but it's easy to imagine that the probability, that there were some in the crowd on Palm Sunday crying out Hosanna, who later that week were in the crowd on Good Friday crying out, crucify him. There's a fickleness to the fans that ... Jesus wasn't after that. He doesn't want people who are self-deceived. He's looking, not for fans, he's looking for followers. He's looking for people who are ready to enter through that narrow gate, to take up their cross and to follow him down that hard path, but to follow him knowing that it is the path that leads to life. If you're here today and you're ready to become a follower of Jesus, the way you enter through that narrow gate is simply to repent, to put your faith in Jesus Christ. You can do that right now. If you do, we would love to talk to you, we'd love to pray with you after the service and talk more about what this decision means. If you are a follower of Jesus, understand, hopefully you understand this, that you can't walk this path alone. You need people around you to help you, to encourage you along this way. If you're in a community group, be faithful to that community group, invest in those relationships. If you're not, we would love to help you get plugged into a community group today. It's one of the best ways where you can do this for one another and go on this journey of following Jesus together. If you're interested in that, just mark that on the back of your connection card. or stop by the welcome center, we'd love to help you find a community group today. Then finally, one more thing before we close, next Sunday, Easter Sunday, and so who do you know that maybe needs to come and stand in the crowd with the hopes that they hear the teaching of Jesus, and they see that He is one who taught with authority and they themselves lead the crowd and become a disciple as well? We're going to be praying for those people this week. If you have opportunities to invite them and bring them along next Sunday, we'd love to see them here worshiping with us on Easter Sunday. With that being said, would you please join me in prayer? And then we'll continue and worship together. Jesus, we thank you for giving us this sure foundation for being our solid rock. Lord, we thank you for this week, where we are reminded that you did conquer Satan, sin and death, that you took our sin upon yourself on that cross, and then you Rose in victory on Sunday morning. I thank you for this good news that we have because of you and what you've done for us. Father, I pray that you would make us wise, that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit, that you'd give us the strength to faithfully continue down this hard narrow path of discipleship, to keep our eyes focused on Christ, the founder, the perfector, the trailblazer, the pioneer of our faith, and to fervently pursue him until that day where we stand before you in judgment. Not to hear those words, depart from me, I never knew you, but to hear those words, well, done, my good and faithful servant. Come, enter into the joy of your master. We long for that day, and we pray, until we get there, that you would, by the power of your Holy Spirit, help us to be faithful witnesses to you. We love you, we praise you, and we give you all glory, in the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord and savior, amen.
Sermon on the Mount 9
March 21, 2021 • Matthew 7:1–12
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning, welcome to Mosaic. My name is John I'm with the pastors here, along pastor Shane and pastor Andy. If you're new or if you're visiting, we'd love to connect with you. Do that through the connection card in the worship guide, either the physical one or the virtual one in the app or on the website, you fill it out and then get it to us. We'll get in touch with you over the course of the week. Quick announcement; April 2nd is good Friday, we have a service here at 6:00 PM. Easter, we have three services, 8:30, 10:15, and noon. Just keep that on your calendar. Then also, plan to invite some friends to one of, or all services. They'll be tremendous, by God's grace. Also, we have another prayer service tonight, the second of three. Tonight and then next week, that is at 5:00 PM. Love to see you at that as well. That said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's holy word? Heavenly father, we thank you that you though being a holy God, did not leave us in our sins, though that's what we deserved. That you could have damned us for all of eternity. You could have sent us on our way. That's where we were headed, to spend eternity apart from you in a place called hell. That's what we deserve. We recognize that, we own that. We sense that that's the bad news. It's terrible news. But we thank you for Jesus Christ. Jesus, we thank you that you came, you lived a perfect life. You lived that perfect life, so that we would not have to bear condemnation. Because you did that on the cross for us, you were condemned, you were damned, you were canceled. And you did that in order to cancel the record of our indebtedness to God. We thank you for grace. We thank you that we can be saved. We thank you that we can be forgiven. We thank you that we can be redeemed no matter what we've done. There is always hope for redemption while our heart is beating. We thank you for that. I pray that you make us a people who receive that grace and extend that grace, that graciousness. You are a God who is loving and you're slow to anger. You are patient and you're steadfast, in your loving kindness. We thank you for that. Make us the people who receive it and extend it in the same way that Jesus extends it to us. We pray this in Christ's Holy name. Amen. If you're new, we are in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever preached, that's Jesus Christ himself, the son of God, son of man. He doesn't just give us wisdom, he doesn't just teach us how to live, he also extends grace to us and the Holy Spirit that empowers us to live this brand new life. A life that is to the full, a life of loving kindness, a life of discernment and a life of grace. Today, we are in Matthew 7:1-12. Next week, we'll finish off this sermon series. The title of my sermon is, Don't Cancel People. We live in a censorious culture, people getting canceled left and right. JK Rowling, Gina Carano, Mike Lindell, Goya, Mr. Potato Head, Dr. Seuss and Jemima, Uncle Ben, cancel, cancel, cancel. Donald Trump, canceled. Four years' president, disappears. You can't even say his name, without feeling uncomfortable in the room. Cancel, cancel, cancel. How do we respond to the cancel culture? The natural response is, "You cancel me, I'm going to cancel you twice as hard." That's the natural response. What's the Christian response? The Christian response goes like this, "We recognize we all deserve to be canceled. We all deserve to be damned. We all deserve to be condemned, forever. But thanks be to Jesus Christ who came to uncancel us." Jesus called canceled people his friends. The people who were ostracized by society, written off. You are dead to society, if you were a prostitute or an adulterer or tax collector or a pagan. Jesus befriends these people. His closest circle of friends included the worst of the worst, the guiltiest of the guilty. He befriends them, he forgives the outcast, the misfit, the leper, the liar, the adulterer. He refused to dismiss the dismissed. He refused to reject the rejected. He accepted them. He forgave the denounced. He pardoned. He gave grace. Jesus Christ, how did he do that? How can God, a Holy God, just forgive? He can't just forgive. Because he's just. Jesus Christ comes and on the cross, he says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Why did God, the father, forsake God, the son. Because God, the son, took our condemnation upon himself. God, the son, was canceled on the cross, in order to cancel the record of our indebtedness against God. He's taken away, nailing it to the cross. It's from that perspective, that we look at Matthew 7, where Jesus gives us some of the most famous verses from all of scripture. But it's from that perspective, that he tells us to be careful in how we judge. Today we're in Matthew 7:1-12, would you look at the text with me. "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounced, you will be judged. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your eye," when there is the log in your own eye. You hypocrite. First, take the log out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." "Do not give dogs what is holy, do not throw your pearls before the pigs. Lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives and the one who seeks, finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened." "For which one of you, if his son asks him for bread will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish will give him a serpent. If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children? How much more will your father who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him? Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this as the law and the prophets." This is the reading of God's holy, infallible, authoritative word. May write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame over time. Christian judging, Christian asking, Christian loving. First, is Christian judging. Jesus goes from addressing our attitudes toward money and possessions, that's the past two pericopes, the paragraphs. Now, he transitions to talking about our attitudes toward people. "Judge not, lest you be judged." What does that mean? Does that means we get rid of teachers? Does that mean we can get rid of grades, coaches, umpires, referees, cops, judges, courts, accountability, responsibility? Is that what he's saying? Can't be. Because even in this text he says, "You're hypocrites." That's a judgment call. Call some people pigs and dogs. Judgment call. Jesus had very choice words for the religious elites and for politicians. Herod, he calls him the fox. Pharisees, whitewashed tombs, brood of Vipers. Those are all judgment calls. He had very hard words for hard hearted people, to wake them up to the reality. He's obviously not saying don't make judgment calls. He's not saying don't practice this sermon because there's no way around it. Even if someone comes to you and says, "Hey, you're in sin," and your response is, "Don't judge me." That person at that second, is judging, your judging of them. You can't get around it. He's not saying, "Don't judge." 1 Corinthians 10:15 says, "I speak to you as sensible people, judge for yourselves, what I say." We are to judge. We are to make judgment calls. He doesn't say, "Do not judge ever," in terms of discernment. Here we get into linguistic analysis. What does judge mean? It's a Greek word, krino, has two definitions. The first one is condemnation, to condemn. The second one is, to discern. He's not saying, don't discern, he's saying do not condemn. Condemnation without the hope of redemption. That's what he's saying. Matthew 7:6, "Do not give dogs what is holy. Do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you." Dogs here are not pets, dogs here, he's talking about wild, unclean, filthy animals. And the priests who go into the temple and part of the sacrifice he'll present to God, that's the holy part and part the priests would eat. The Holy part is that which is given to God. You don't take that and give it to a wild dog, because that would be an abomination. That would be desecration. Same thing with the pig. The pig, you don't throw a Pearl to a pig, because the pig does not sense its value. The dog does not sense the value of the holy part. Jesus here is talking about animals that don't sense the realities, other than the physical. They're only driven by appetites. They don't see the beauty. They don't treasure the treasure. Jesus in other parts of scripture tells the disciples, "Go preach the gospel. If you go to villages where people just reject you, they don't want to hear the message of redemption, because they don't sense a need for being forgiven, because of self-righteousness, because of pride." He says, "In those cases, shake off the dust from your feet of that village." Meaning, those people who have had ample opportunity to hear, receive the good news and have decisively, even defiantly rejected it, we need to have a discernment of when pushing the gospel on people, isn't really helpful. It's discernment, some spiritual sensitivity. We are to be discerning. Matthew 7:15-20, few verses below our text, Jesus says, "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You'll recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits." We are to be discerning. We are to know the truth, know the scriptures, know the gospel and have a spiritual sixth sense, so to speak, that goes off when we hear lies, and when we see that the fruit isn't a fruit of the spirit. Hebrews 5:14 says, "But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil." We have to grow, we have to train our discernment. Scripture talks often about judging that's lawful and that's required in the word of God. There's ecclesiastical or in the church, judging. Matthew 18, if a brother or sister sinned against you, you go to them, you have a conversation with them. You call out their sin. "Hey, you've sinned against me. Let's have a conversation. Ecclesiastical judging. The civil government judges, Romans 13 talks about that. Private judging, where in family and relationships, you help one another fight the good fight, by calling out sin, speaking, truth and love. There are times to judge. What's Jesus talking about here, when he says, "Do not judge, let's do be judged?" The word hypocrite is used. Do not do it hypocritically. That's really the whole context of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus over and over and over and over and over says there's two paths. There's the authentic, spiritual, gracious, humble walk with the Lord, and there's the prideful, lies and hypocritical, inauthentic, mask-wearing. Matthew 5:24, "I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Jesus, in his mind, he has a group of people, the Pharisees. The Pharisees who have taken God's law and they turn it upside down, instead of loving God and loving people, they've loved self and used God and people. Matthew 21:26, he says, "Do not get angry, like the hypocrites, but love like Jesus." The next text, "Do not lust like the hypocrites, but be pure in heart, like Jesus." Then he says, "Do not divorce like the hypocrites, but be faithful to your spouse, like Jesus. Do not lie like the hypocrites, but always be truthful, like Jesus. Do not retaliate like the hypocrites, but seek reconciliation, like Jesus. Do not hate your enemies, like a hypocrite, but be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Do not practice your righteousness like the hypocrites, but be righteous, like Jesus. Do not give to be seen like the hypocrites, but give to meet needs like Jesus. Do not pray like the hypocrites, do not fast like the hypocrites, do not lay treasures up like the hypocrites. Do not be anxious, like the hypocrites." Then we get to text, "Do not judge like the hypocrites, that you be not judged, like the hypocrites." The Pharisees, thought highly of themselves. They held utter contempt for those on the outside, for those who weren't as righteous as they were, for those who weren't as virtuous as they were. They judged, not to help people seek redemption, but in order to demean. There's a parable that Jesus gives of the Pharisee and the tax collector. They come into church together. And the Pharisee prays out loud and says, "God, I thank you that I'm not like that guy. I thank you, that I fast twice a week and I tithe and I am a good person. Thank you for that. I'm not extortioners, unjust, adulterous or even like this tax collector." The tax collector comes in and he can't even look up and be judged. "Condemn not," see there it's clarified. "Condemn not and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven." John 7:24, "Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment." John 8:15, "You judge, according to the flesh, I judge no one." Then we're told don't do it hypocritically and don't judge from a position of God, where you cast this person out as if you're God. God is merciful, God is gracious. While we're still alive, there's still room for redemption. Romans 14:4, "Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls and he will be upheld. For the Lord is able to make him stand." We're not to judge in the position of God, we're not to judge hastily or rashly. We're to give people the benefit of the doubt. They're sinners, we're sinners. Proverbs 18:13, "If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame." This discernment that we need, we need to gather the information, before jumping to conclusions. Really, the emphasis is on the hypocrisy. Romans 2:1, "Therefore, you have no excuse oh man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself." Because you would the judge, practice the very same things. That's the issue. We're sinners. Before dealing with our own sin, we start sinning others, that's what he's getting at. Francis Schaeffer, a great apologist of the 20th century, he said, "All God needs to condemn us 1,000 times over, is to hang a tape recorder around our neck and judge us with the same standard that we have for other people." We do have standards for other people. We judge all the time. Our culture, it's promoting judging. There's ratings and reviews for absolutely everything. We've got a one star review. Our church got a one-star review two weeks ago. I know the person that gave it, because I just had a conversation with that person. I go home and I get an email from Google that we got a one star review from that person. If you gave us, I'd really appreciate a conversation. Please retract it. Because now we're at 4.9. For the rest of you, do a very simple evangelistic work today and go on Google and give us a five star review, please, and leave a little paragraph and things like that. Everyone's just out to judge. It's the hypocritical judging that he's getting at. What happened to David and Nathan, David commits adultery with Bathsheba, murders her husband. A year passes, and he's just so blinded by his own sin. Then Nathan, the prophet, comes to him. Tells them a story, about a rich man who had lots of sheep. He goes to the poor man, steals his sheep in order to entertain his friends. Nathan comes to David, tells him that story. David's anger is kindled. He says, "That man will pay four times. Four-fold for his sin." 2 Samuel 12:5-7, says, "Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man." He said to Nathan, "As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and because he had no pity." Nathan said to David, "You are the man." You are that guy. This is what Jesus is getting at. He doesn't say we can't discern. He doesn't say we can't have judgment calls. No. There's no way around that. But Matthew 7:3-5, this is what he's getting at. "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye and do not notice the log that is in your own eye." This is an illustration from a carpenter's workshop. The spec is just the sawdust and the plank or the log. This is a beam. Meaning like a weight bearing beam, load bearing beam. It's like a telephone pole. You're saying you want to help someone who's got a little speck in his eye, when you've got a big, massive log coming out of your own eye? What's that spec? How can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your own eye, when there's a logging and your own. You hypocrite, first take out the log that is in your own eye, then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." What is the spec? We understand that's a sin. Every single one of us, we have specks in our eyes. That's sin. And Jesus says, "But be careful, that you do not have a log." What's the log? Separate from the spec, the log here is the thing that keeps you from seeing reality as it truly is. In the context of about pigs and dogs, the log is what makes the spiritual, imperceptible. The log is what makes you relegate it to just physical appetites. What is this log? This log is the only sin that God cannot forgive. What is this log? What is the sin that God cannot forgive? It's the sin of pride, self-Righteousness, where you think you're better than others, and that's why you judge. "You're not as good as I am. No redemption for you because I don't need to be redeemed, because I have done enough good." That's the log that's in the eye of every single person. And the more good things you do, the bigger that log is. It's your resume of virtues. The more you do apart from God, the bigger it gets and the more you judge other people, because they're just not as good as you. Self-righteousness, that's what's at the root of canceling people, literal condemnation. "You're worthless. I'm through with you. You are dead to me." It's self-righteousness. There's no grace, because you don't see your own need for grace. Matthew 7:24, "With the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you." There's two options here. Two options in this text. Option number one is, you say, no one can possibly live up to the standards of Jesus, therefore, let's get rid of them. The other option is, no one can live up to the standards of Jesus, I need to repent of my sin, where I do not live up to the standards of Jesus. I need to ask Jesus to take out the log from my eye, the plank from my eye. I do that by recognizing, it's that plank of pride and self righteous. It's those two planks that Jesus Christ was crucified upon, to take out the plank from my eye. When I realized that, now, I'm in a position where, there is hope for redemption. There is forgiveness, there is mercy, there is grace, and I can change. Instead of changing God instead of changing his rules, because I can't live up to them, instead of throwing them out and writing our own rules and trying to create heaven on earth, without God. Instead of doing that, I recognize his standard is holy. He is righteous. I can't change God. He's immutable. I need to ask for forgiveness. The standard is still the standard. I do my best on a daily basis, receiving grace by the power of the spirit to live up to the standard. I never do it perfectly. Driving the car yesterday, my wife was talking about my oldest daughter. My oldest daughter is 12. I got a 12 year old at my house. That's challenging. Our 12 year old is at the point where she has a tremendous memory. When we say things that she should do, and we don't do those things, she has a record of all the things that we don't do. She called mom a hypocrite. I was like, "Oh, that's fascinating. You're a 12 year old. You wouldn't even be here, if it wasn't for us." Then she said, "How about you, dad, are you a hypocrite?" I said, "100%. I'm barely a Christian. I'm a by accident, Christian. I look at myself, I'm like, I can't believe God saved me." There's other people I look at, I'm like, "I could see that God of the universe had died for you." For me, "I wouldn't die for me. I can't believe it." We're all hypocrites. We're all unrighteous. We're all self-righteous. That's what Jesus is saying in Matthew 7:5, "You hypocrite." You're like, "Ah, that doesn't feel very good." But it's true. It's absolutely true. You're a hypocrite, I'm a hypocrite. We're all hypocrites. "First take out the log out of your own eye, then you will see clearly take the speck out of your brother's eye." He says, you do it. You take out the log. This is what Christianity says, is you do it. As you try to do it, you realize just how painstaking this, and you can do it and you need Jesus. Ever got something in your eye? It's the worst feeling ever. The smallest thing, the worst thing. You can do everything you possibly can and you can't get it out. Then who do you allow to do it, someone you really trust. That's really what becoming a Christian is. It's, "Lord, please take this out." Then that's justification. Sanctification is, when we on a daily basis, look at our own life, is there a log? Is there a spec? You apply the judgment that you apply to other people. What he's saying is, the way that you judge other people, apply that same standard to yourself, 100 times more meticulously, then you'll begin to understand what he's saying here. The way that we do it is, we can be brutally honest with ourselves about our own faults. We can be brutally honest because, there's always grace. There there's always redemption. We don't have to hide it from Jesus Christ. This is what the gospel is. We haven't met the standard, Jesus has. He gives us grace for our sin. We're all dogs, and wild pigs in of ourselves. We don't sense the beauty of spirituality. We don't sense the beauty of God in of ourselves. We have cold, hard hearts and we're just focused and preoccupied with physical appetites. We're all pigs. Jesus is the pearl. When we look to the cross and we realize that Jesus Christ was thrown to the pigs, he was thrown to dogs, he was crucified on our behalf. He did that for us, that's when we begin to see the value of Christ, that he was crucified on our planks and our beams, in order to save us. We love the concept of forgiveness. We love the concept of grace. We love that. But the concept of forgiveness assumes judgment. And what our culture has done, we've tried to get rid of the moral code, although it's still written on our hearts. We try to get rid of that. There's no standard, there's no judgment, but there's only grace and forgiveness. I know you can't have forgiveness without the standard. God offers us the forgiveness, but first we need to realize, that we have sinned and we have the spiritual cancer. If you have cancer and you go to the doctor and the doctor says you have cancer, is he judging you? No, he's not. He's diagnosing you. That's what the gospel does. That's what Jesus does. When you realize that's what he does for us in order to heal us in order to forgive us, we receive the grace and now, we can help others do the same, from a position of humility. "I'm not better than you." Every single one of us, we are wicked sinners, deserving hell, but Jesus saved me. You know what? I think he could save you. You got to repent of your sin, of your self-righteousness. Practical applications here, in terms of judgment, first, we got to check yourself, you got to check your own spiritual eye for a plank, for a speck. 1 Corinthians 11:28, talking about communion, "Let a person examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup." Examine. Self-examination. What sins in my life are just... They're there. They're lodged in my eye. I need to repent and to leave that sin. James 4:16, "Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power, as it's working." We need to confess our sins to God and sometimes it's helpful to confess them to others, when it's just lodged in their habitual sin, "I can't get rid of it." Find a brother and sister whom you trust and share it and confess and fight the good fight together. Also, we need to learn how to take judgment. As Christians, as brothers and sisters, we need to learn how to receive truth. We're to speak truth with grace. We are also to receive it and not be like a dog biting back or a pig on the attack, when people come to us and they point out a sin in our lives. What's the first reaction? Is it defensive? Putting a guard, "Who are you to judge me?" Or, is it from a position of, "I am a sinner. Thanks for pointing that out. Let me think about that. That's really important. Psalm 141:5, "Let a righteous man strike me, it is a kindness. Let him rebuke me, It is oil for my head. Let my head not refuse it yet. Yet my prayer is continually against their evil deeds." Proverbs 9:8, "Do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you. Reprove a wise man and he will love you." Proverbs 27:6, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse are the kisses of an enemy." Proverbs 25:12, "Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold, is a wise reprove to a listening ear." Also we are to learn, to give truth to people with grace. It's truth with grace. When you do that, there is a potential for you to be canceled, dear Christian. When you take a stance for Christ, for truth, you will be persecuted and more and more so in our culture that is growing more and more godless. We aren't to be surprised by that, at all. We need to expect it. That's what Jesus said, "I have been hated, you will be hated as well on my account by some. But others will hear it and will be regenerated by the Holy Spirit." Because of our witness, eternally changed for that person. That's why it's worth it. It's worth it. We'll take the hate. We'll take the persecution. But there are some who will be drawn to Christ and it's worth it, 100%. Second is Christian asking, Matthew 7:7-11, "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. For anyone who asks, receives, and the one who seeks, finds and to the one who knocks, it will be opened." Ask before we seek. It assumes humility. Instead of first pursuing whatever it is you want, you need to ask. Lord, is this good? Is this right? Is this is from you? There is growth. Ask, before we seek, seek before we know. Then he says, "Which of you, if his son asks him for bread will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father was in heaven, give good gifts to those who ask?" This is an argument from the less to the greater. If a human father, who is sinful and selfish as we all are, we are. I used to think I was a selfless person before I got married and then realized how selfish I was. Then just progress with every kid. I thought I was a selfless person. Then I had a kid. Here's the thing about having a kid? You have the kid, so cute, but you just give up all of your naps forever. You will never have another nap. It's gone. But even with our sinful, selfish natures, we care for our children's needs. That's what he's saying. If sinful, human fathers do, how much more will a perfect and infinitely loving father, provide for our needs, give us what we need? Not necessarily we always ask for, because how terrible the thing would it be if God always gave us what we ask for? It's fascinating how Jesus just slips in, in this context of like, "Do not judge," he calls us hypocrites and calls some people dogs and pigs. Then he also calls us evil here. He just slips that in. Because he's the king of the universe. He brings in, "You are evil," slips that in as the most obvious and incontestable fact. We're all evil, even at our best. Humans are at their best when they're providing for children. Even at our best, we are evil. We are dogs, we are pigs. We deserve nothing by condemnation. We can't stand before God on our rights, on our moral record, on our virtues, on the basis of anything. We're unfit for blessing. From this perspective, we can now begin to understand blessings. It absolutely changes your life. When you understand that you deserve nothing but hell and condemnation, everything else in life is icing on the cake. I'm alive today. I'm breathing. Had some coffee. I'm going to have lunch later. Incredible blessings. It just changes your perspective. I get to live in Boston and share the gospel with people. They're going to bite. They're going to kick. They're going to fight back. Well, I deserve nothing... It changes absolutely everything. God is gracious to us. Instead of getting offended, that Jesus called me a hypocrite, instead of getting offended that I'm evil, instead of getting offended, that I got a big log in my eye, instead of getting offended that I'm a dog or a pig, instead, take that as grace from God to wake you up, to change you from the inside out. There's a story in Matthew 15:21-28, a very controversial story, where Jesus calls a woman a dog. And here's the story. "Jesus went away from there and withdrew the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, "Have mercy on me O Lord, son of God. My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon." This is a mother at her best, saying that her child is being possessed, is suffering under demonic possession. Comes to Jesus asking for help. But he did not answer her a word. His disciples came and begged him saying, "Send her away, for she's crying out after us." We see the persistence. He answered to her, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord. Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." Then Jesus answered her, "Oh woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly. I saw this TikTok, I'm old enough for that to be funny. I saw this TikTok of a pastor. Apparently this pastor is on TikTok. Certain kind of pastors are on TikTok. This guy read this text and he said, "Jesus is a racist." Jesus sees a woman of another race and he's being racist to her. Then she points out the work that he needs to do to fight his racism, like internal work, and then Jesus repents and he changes and now he's no longer a racist. False. False. That's false. Jesus is never sin. Perfect son of God. He's not a racist. You can't read scripture through these lenses of you judging God. It's not going to end well. Jesus here, what's going on? It's not about race here, it's not about pedigree. Because Jesus said, "What makes a person unclean is the heart." We're not dogs because of race, that's not what's going on. We're all sinners. We're all dogs. She doesn't assert her rights. She doesn't come to Jesus demanding, "Jesus, you owe me. You owe me." Even on the basis of her suffering. A lot of people come to God on the basis of their suffering. "God, you owe me." God doesn't owe us anything. We are degenerate sinners. We deserve nothing but hell. She comes to them and she acknowledges, humbly. "I am a dog. I'm not a child. I have sinned. I have allowed evil into my life. I deserve nothing." And she doesn't walk away, discouraged, and she's hanging her head. She recognized, "I am unworthy and you're merciful. I am unworthy, but there's enough bread on that table, even for me. I don't deserve a crumb, but I know who you are. You're a gracious God." And she gets what she desired. "Be it done for you, as you desire." This text is not just about our prayer life, that's part of it. But it's about our posture before God. That we are to come to God with humility. "God, I don't deserve anything. God, I am a rebel. I'm not a child. But because of Jesus Christ, I can be adopted into the family of God and I can come to you and I can pray, persistently." Scripture talks about praying with impudence, shamelessness, unblushing persistence, relentlessly, audaciously, tenaciously asking God. And God honors that persistence. My daughter Milana, she's three, almost four. She's born with this persistence. Whenever she wants something... By the way, our family has four kids. Wherever we go, it's a crowd. To get your voice heard, you need to persist. Whenever our families get together, my sister has four kids, my other sister has two kids. I have four siblings. Whenever we get together as a family, it's the persistent and the loudest person that gets heard. My daughter Milana, she learned that. She learned that cheat code to our family. And she will nag you and persist. She has the same forehead and eyebrow thing that I do, where she gives you all of her emotions with her face and she's like, "Papa, papa, papa, I need this thing." I'm like, "Fine. Take it. Just get away from me. Leave me alone." That's kind of how God says that we should pray, nag him, persistent in prayer. He honors that persistence and the expectancy. "I expect you to answer. I expect that you will give me what I need. Not necessarily what I want. I expect." So prayer is more than just asking for stuff. It's asking for more of the presence of God, because when you persist, when you keep at it, you're getting more of God. Jeremiah 29, 11-14: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "Plans for welfare, not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you and you will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you," declares the Lord. Our most fervent prayers should be not just to God, but for God. "God, I want more of you." That's what Luke 11:13, the parallel passage, that's what it ends with. "If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children? How much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" What's the greatest thing that God can give us? It's more of himself. A greater measure of himself. More of his presence, more of his face. When we ask, when we seek, when we knock, as we do, we are to ask and seek and knock, for more of the Holy Spirit. Three, is Christian loving, Matthew 7:12. "Whatever you wish that others would do to you do also to them for this is the law and the prophets." This is all of Christian ethics, all of Christian morality, in one verse. By the way, this is how Jesus ends the ethical section of the whole Sermon on the Mount. After this text, he talks about a saving relationship with God. Here, he ends all of ethics, all of the ethical stuff, with saying, "Whatever you wish that others would do to you do also for them." This is the greater righteousness that Jesus expects from his disciples. The statement, in its negative form, is found in lots of ancient writings. This is why if you study Christianity and world religions in high school and college, this is what they say, "Oh, Jesus didn't really say anything unique. All other religions have it." They have it in the negative form. The negative form is, do not do to others what you wouldn't want to be done for you." We see this from Athenian philosophers, the Jewish rabbi, rabbi Hillel said, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow creatures." It's found in the teachings of Confucius. And so, in human beings, we're creating the image of God. The moral code is written on our hearts. We know what is required of us, in the negative form. And the negative form, you don't want to get robbed, don't Rob someone. You don't want to get cussed out, don't cuss out other people. You don't want to be hated, don't hate other people. We know that. What is unnatural to us, is the positive form. It's absolutely unnatural. It's supernatural. It's higher, it's more proactive. If you enjoy being loved, love others. If you enjoy being encouraged and appreciated, encourage and appreciate others. If you enjoy generosity, then give to others. It's really an elaboration of Leviticus, 19:18, it says, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." It's unselfish love to others, to strangers. Bishop Ryle said this, "It settles 100 difficult points, which in a world like this, are continually arising between people. It prevents the necessity of laying down, endless little rules for our conduct and specific cases. It sweeps the whole debatable ground, with one mighty principle. This is the operating principle and it should be for every situation of life. For marriage, it's the key, it's the secret to marriage. If you want a back rub, if you enjoy back rubs, give your spouse a back rub. Scratch hard with the nails, like that. Do that. With children, raise your children, do onto them as you would have them do onto you. It changes every situation in life. At work, on the T, on the highway, on the street, it changes dating, it changes marriage, it changes parenting, friendship, church membership. And it changes judging. That's why he starts with that and he ends with that. Think about how you want to be treated, how you want to be judged when you need correction, then treat others the same way. It takes a certain wisdom. It's not natural. It takes wisdom. A lot of people talk them about nowadays emotional intelligence. All emotional intelligence really is, is pretending you're the other person. Putting yourself in their shoes, recognizing, understanding, sympathizing, empathizing with their situation. "How would I want to be treated?" And treat them the same way? Anyone who's really tried to live like this, knows how punishingly difficult it is. Because we are all vain and proud and selfish and self-centered. How much time did you think about yourself this morning? All the time. You spent all the time thinking about yourself. Thinking about what you're going to eat and thinking about how you need to fix your hair, thinking about whatever. And being able to put yourself in the position, that's what he's saying. We can't do it on our own. How can we become more selfless and more humble and more sincere, through the gospel, recognizing that the only person who's really done this completely, of putting themselves in my place, the only one that's really done that, is Jesus Christ. He 100% put himself in your place on the cross. When you realize that, "On the cross, Jesus put himself in my place in order to forgive me and change me," that's selflessness. Now, we begin to understand, I can now put myself in another person's place. Then how else? Through prayer. By asking, seeking and knocking, for the more important blessings. Not just physical stuff, of God to change our hearts and change our characters. The golden rule can only be understood in this context. We pray, "Forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors. Forgive us as we forgive others. You've forgiven us, now I can forgive others." It's generous judgment. When we see people in sin, when we see people who were trying to cancel us, there's a generous discernment and judgment where we leave the door open for redemption. Redemption that was given to us. Kanye West once said, "I've been canceled before they had canceled culture." Cancel culture goes back much further than Kanye West. Cancel culture goes back all the way back to when Jesus Christ stood before Pilate. And Pilate, after looking at all the facts, he says, "I've found no fault in this man. I've examined him in your presence. I found no fault in him. He's done nothing deserving of death." And the mob, what did they cry out? "Crucify him! Crucify him!." Cancel him. He is dead to us. They did that to the greatest person who ever lived. And Jesus allowed it to happen. Why did he allow this to happen? Why did he allow evil to triumph? Because this is the only way for him to triumph over evil. This was the only way for Jesus to forgive us of our evil. This is the only way of Jesus not condemning us, by taking our condemnation upon himself. Psalm 22, written centuries before crucifixion was even invented as a means of execution. Psalm 22:16, "For dogs encompass me, a company of evil doers encircles me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me. They divided my garments among them and for my clothing, they cast lots. But you all Lord, do not be far off. Oh, you might help come quickly to my aid. Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs." Dogs who didn't see the treasure that was before them crucifying him. And Jesus cries out and he says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." They're still guilty, even if they don't know what they're doing, but forgive them. Jesus Christ was canceled by our sin, to cancel our sin. He was canceled by our guilt, to cancel our guilt. He was canceled by our condemnation, to cancel our condemnation. He was canceling the power of death to give us life. If you're not a Christian, we today invite you to become a Christian by repenting of your sin and turning to Christ. Leave your sins and leave your self-righteousness at the cross of Christ. Receive his grace. As Christians, may you know the joy of sin forgiven by the Lord, Jesus Christ, amen. Lord Jesus, we thank you for being a great God and a gracious God. We thank you that you never look at us and say, "You are absolutely hopeless." While we're alive, there is hope. I pray that every single person who's heard my voice, I pray that they become your adopted children. In of ourselves, we are evil and we are hypocrites and we are dogs and we are pigs, but you welcome us into your family as adopted children. Thanks be to Christ for that, in whose name we pray, amen.
Sermon on the Mount 8
March 14, 2021 • Matthew 6:25–34
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning. Welcome to Mosaic Church. This is the time that we find out who the faithful Christians of Mosaic are. Anyone who shows up when we lose an hour of sleep, halleluiah, you got extra reward in heaven. Your spiritual Venmo just went cha-ching, welcome. If you're new or visiting, we'd love to connect with you. We do that through the connection card, either the physical one that you can get in the back or the virtual one that you can get in our app or on our website. One quick announcement. For the next three weeks starting today, we have prayer nights, 5:00 PM today and the next two Sundays. The structure will be we'll have prayer in the beginning. We'll have some worship. And then we'll have a 20-minute sermon or so from a brother in the congregation who's discerning the call to full-time vocational ministry. And then we'll have some more prayer as a congregation. Why are we doing this? Primarily to set our hearts on Lent, to prepare ourselves for Good Friday. That's April 2nd. And then also Easter, which is April 4th. Easter, we will be having three services. All the information you can get online or I think it's in the worship guide. Easter is one of the best times of the year to invite friends to church, friends who perhaps had some exposure to Christianity and then walked away or friends who just haven't been in church for a while or friends who don't know much about Christianity, but you say, "Hey, this is part of my tradition. If you respect me and my faith, you should come to church with me. We will just preach the gospel and pray for people to get saved." So, plan on inviting friends and praying about that. With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's Holy Word? Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a good God. You are a good father. You are perfect, Father. You're a father who is great and you're a father who is good. Great in that you are all powerful and good in that you enjoy to give us good gifts. You enjoy to meet our needs. You enjoy to provide for us so that we glorify you, to satisfy us so that we are satisfied in you. Lord, we thank you for Jesus Christ. Jesus, we thank you that you came and you met our greatest need. You lived the perfect life that we would not, could not live. You went to the cross to die of the death that we deserve. You died in our place in order to reconcile us with the God of universe. Therefore, meeting our greatest need, that of reconciling us with God, that of forgiveness, that of justification, that of imputed righteousness. We thank you, Holy Spirit, that you are real, that you are with us, that you are a person, that you love us and you long to fill us and lead us and seal us. I pray, Holy Spirit, come to this place, lead us, prepare our hearts, enlighten our minds, illuminate our hearts, our souls, and feed us from the Holy Scriptures, and teach us that we as the children of God have nothing to worry about. Our eternity is secure. Every single detail of our lives is under the control of a sovereign God, who is great and who is good. We love you, Lord, and we thank you for that. Deepen our trust in your faith, in our obedience and allegiance to you. Take away any burdens that we are carrying that we should not be. We cast them upon you, because you are God who cares. We pray that you bless our time with the Holy Scriptures and pray this in Christ's holy name, Amen. If you're new, we're going through the Sermon on the Mount, the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher to ever preach, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the son of man. He came to show us that there's nothing that we can do to be saved. There's no righteousness that we can do. There's no path that we can follow in order to make ourselves right before God, just before God. Therefore, we need to repent of our sin. We need to acknowledge our spiritual bankruptcy. We need to believe in Christ. The very moment that we repent and believe, we become children of God. At that moment, we go from just being creation, just being image bearers of God who are sinful and broken and ostracized from God, we now become his children. As his children, he wants us to live with the richness of the title of a child of the God of the universe. Last week, Jesus commands us and shows us that we are not to store or hoard treasures here on Earth. Instead, we are to have an eternal perspective on this life, on material things, on money, on everything that we have. Instead, we have to lay up treasures in heaven. What that does is sets our priorities that God is first, heaven is first, eternity is first. Everything else that God gives us here is for our stewardship. We had to steward it well for his glory and to serve our neighbor. A failure to view riches or possessions from proper perspective promotes anxiety. That's what God wants us to meditate upon today. My wife and I, we've been here for about 11 years, I think, coming up on 12. Our second apartment was in Cleveland Circle on Lanark Road. It was a one-way street. We're on the second floor. We love that place. One of the things that we loved about that place is the magnolia tree outside of our window. If you know anything about weather in Boston, spring lasts about three days. It goes winter, spring for about three days, and then it's summer. Fall is nice. But every spring, we would look forward to the magnolia tree blooming outside our window. The flowers were white and purple. It was glorious. If you know anything about weather in Boston, it could be spring one day, and the next day, it snows. So, don't get too happy about the weather. It was like 70 this week. We might still get a snowstorm. Who knows? So, the magnolia tree blooms. And then it snowed. It was winter, nasty, heavy, wet snow. It just covered this magnolia tree and the branch is just drooping, just cracking. They started breaking under the pressure of this snow. So, I went outside. If you know anything about Boston driving, you got to have a shovel in your car. You always have to. In the trunk of your car, you have to have a shovel. So, I got my shovel, I go outside, and I started cleaning off the tree. As the snow fell, you saw just the tree almost sigh a breath of relief, just breathe a breath of relief. The weight is gone. The burden is gone. Well, I like that image to show that's how we look when we are burdened by anxiety. In this past year, it's been a year of the pandemic. This past year, you've seen just the physical effect of stress and anxiety on people as if they're just walking around with concrete blocks on their shoulders of stress, anxiety, worried, thick with anxiety, worrying about what? What are you worried about? What have you been worried about for this past season? Perhaps it's your health. Perhaps it's the economy, where's it going, politics. Perhaps it's school grades, GPA, loans, job, career, your looks, weight, your hair, your clothes, school, grade, et cetera, succeeding, doing something that's actually meaningful or valuable or meeting someone, relationships, meeting the one, marriage or having a family, providing for your family, raising children that love Jesus in a world where it seems like everything is against that. All of that can be summarized with fear of the future. We don't know what's coming. So, we fear the unknown. Someone said that "Worry is a conversation you have with yourself about things you cannot change." That's what Jesus wants us to focus on today. He delineates between concern, things that we can actually change and work on and worry, things we can't and things that we don't give up into the hands of God. We all fear and the root of anxiety is fear. The most frequently uttered commandment in Scripture is, "Fear not." The way that we fight fear of the future is with faith in a God, who is your Father. Through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we have adoption as children of God. We can become sons and daughters of God by grace through faith. Therefore, we can trust him to provide for all of our needs. So, today, we're Matthew 6:25 through 34. Would you look at the text with me? "Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." This is the reading God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time, do not be anxious; second, focus on your father; and three, seek after the kingdom. "Do not be anxious," he says that in verse 25 and then repeats that at the end of the pericope. He says, "Therefore I tell you do not be anxious about your life." First thing I want to point out is there's different kinds of anxieties. Some of them God-given, some of them are not. There's a God-given emotional anxiety, given as a response when we are in danger, the flight or fight response, when we are in danger perhaps at night, when we're in danger perhaps you're in the woods, when you're in danger on the mean streets of Brookline. As Pastor Shane once said, "When you're getting chased by a turkey, they're mean. Stay away from them. Even in your car, they will attack your car." There's an anxiety that comes or there's a natural anxiety that mother feels or father feels when an infant is sick or an infant needs to be fed. Those are God-given. Disordered physiological response, a clinical anxiety, which is a chronic condition that perhaps soldiers get or first responders or victims of abuse, that's not what Jesus is talking about here. Sometimes there's also natural consequences of sin. If you rack up gambling debt through sin and folly, you should be anxious about paying that off, et cetera. When we bear the consequences of the sin in our life and our body. Today, Jesus is talking about different kinds of anxieties. He's talking about the sinful response to physical things in our life in terms of God's providential care. When we do not trust him to provide for our needs, that's what Jesus Christ is talking about here. He isn't saying to not work. He isn't saying not to provide for yourself and for those around you and not to have enough to be generous with us. That's not what he's talking about. God expects us, his people, to work hard and be amongst the hardest workers and to be responsible. Some Christians have taken these words of do not be anxious and used that as an excuse to justify laziness or irresponsible behavior. I had an uncle who would rack up credit card debt and any debt he could. He wouldn't pay it off, because he said, "Jesus is coming back soon. Don't worry about it. Also, Jesus said, do not be anxious about anything." That's not what Jesus is talking about. You got to interpret Scripture through other Scripture. We do need to be responsible. You do need to wear a seatbelt. There are examples like that where you do need to care for yourself or your family or others. Jesus isn't saying don't plan, because we have the parable of the tower where Jesus says, "Do not be like the foolish builder, who starts a project. He didn't sit down to the very beginning before the project to figure out, "How much do I need to have in my account before I embark on a project like this?" There's the parable of the general. You don't go into war if you don't have enough firepower, manpower to take on the other army. Jesus isn't forbidding sowing and planning. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about the difference between proper caring and concern and fixation on physical things on those matters. He's not saying, "Don't worry about your job. Stay at home. God will take care of your food. He'll send you Uber Eats." That's not what he's talking about. What he's talking about is don't be fixated on the material things of life, the food, the clothing, the housing, et cetera. James talks about, "Hey, when a hungry person or person in need comes into your community, you can't just tell that person, 'Oh, be warmed and filled. Go therefore and be blessed.'" That would be sinful for us not to do what we can to provide for people's needs. You can't just tell that person, "Do not be anxious about food," when they're hungry. We are to care. He's not saying, "Don't worry, because there's an absence of problems in life." No, there's not an absence of problems in life. He's not saying that your life can be free from problems. He's saying that your life can be free from worry despite problems. Your life can be free from anxiety despite the problems of life. There's a difference between anxiety and concern. Concern is when you can do something about it, you're concerned about it, then do something about it. Anxiety is when you can't do anything about it and you don't want to leave it up to God. Robert Frost said that more people die from worry than from work because more people worry than work. That's what he's getting at here is focus on this anxiety that's paralyzing. Jesus' concern here is with our priorities and what flows out of that. He uses the phrase "Do not be anxious" as an imperative twice in this text. He used the word 'anxious' or 'anxiety' six times in this text. Marimnao is the verb. Merimna is the noun. Other places in Scripture, God talks about being careful to not let physical concerns pull us away from the more important concerns, which are the spiritual ones. Matthew 13:22, the parable of the sower, "For what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares..." That's the noun, merimna. "... of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves on fruitful." It's all about priorities. He's saying, "When you seek first the physical things of life at the expense of the spiritual things of life, the Word of God bears unfruitful." Luke 21:34, this is talking about the second coming of Christ. "Watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down by the dissipation and drunkenness and cares..." Again, merimna. "... of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap." If you look at seven blocks of a city and you see fog come down, the fog can be 100 feet thick. But if you take all of that fog and you put it and you turn into water, it'll fill just one glass. So, from God's perspective, that's what our worries look. They fog up our sight. They fog up everything around us. But God says, "Hold on, hold on, view these things from an eternal perspective." Do not be anxious is a commandment from the Lord. Therefore, anxiety about material things can be a sin. Worry can be a sin. Therefore, we need to repent of that sin. Worry's foolish on many levels. Worry never solved the problem, never dried a tear and never lifted a burden and never removed an obstacle and never made bad things good and never made good things better. It's foolish. Philippians 4:5 and 6 says, "The Lord is at hand. Because he's at hand, because he's with us, therefore, do not be anxious about anything." Worry kills joy. Worry causes stress. When we assume the position of God, we say, "God, you're not doing your job. I'm going to do your job better than you're doing your job. I can control things better than you do," and we assume that it's never productive. So, instead of that anxiety, instead of being anxious, he says "Don't be anxious. Instead focus on your Father." Any parent knows this, when a child has an object that they're fixated on that will cause them harm like a knife, if a child grabs a knife, you can just take the object away, but then there's a meltdown. The wise parent is prudent, understands two steps ahead, four dimensional chess. If you're on baby number four, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You know what happens right after you take the object away, there's a meltdown. So, what you got to do is take the object and replace it with something else. And then you sell it to them. You got to market to them. Oh, look at this wonderful thing. And then you get rid of the other object. This is the trick that got Jesus. Don't be anxious, but there's a vacuum. You can't leave it in the vacuum because then you're going to get anxious about not getting anxious and getting worried about not getting worried. So, you got to fill it with something else. What he's talking about is perspective. Don't be focused on these things. Be focused on these things. So, focus on your Father. God is your heavenly Father. God will take care of your food as a believer. That's Matthew 6:25. "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on." Don't be anxious. The present is imperative. It's constant and continuous. You got to fight this on a daily basis. You got to tell your heart, "Oh, so, why are you restless. Heart, why are you restless? Why are you worried? Why are you stressful?" You got to preach to yourself. You got to ask questions like Jesus is asking some rhetorical question, "Isn't life more than food?" Of course, it is. You need food for life, but life is so much more than these things. And then he goes, "Hey, look, if I don't worry about the physical things of life, who will?" Tremendous question. Jesus says, "Your Father, your heavenly Father." Matthew 6:26, "Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" I love this verse for many reasons, particularly because we get a theology of ecology or environmentalism from one verse. In our world today, there's a worldview that's being pushed that humans are equally valuable with animals and with the planet. From Jesus' perspective, that's just not so. Birds are great. They're industrious. They care for themselves in many ways, but they don't feed themselves. They don't plant crops. They don't harvest. They don't store them. It's God that feeds them. Jesus emphasized them that it's not in their heavenly Father. God isn't father of birds. He's not father of dogs. He's not father of cats. He's not father of animals. He's God over them. He's creator over them. He doesn't say, "Their heavenly Father." He says, "Your heavenly Father." Meaning you are special. Humans are special. So, in terms of caring for the environments, we should, et cetera, it's God's creation, but there's priorities that humans are infinitely more valuable than animals or even creation itself. We're created in the image of God, your heavenly Father. You're created through Jesus Christ, and then God has bought you dear Christian through the blood of Jesus Christ. So, you are doubly his and doubly precious, infinite and value worth to your heavenly Father. Food here, he talks about food. He starts with food. Food is a wonderful servant to sustain life. It's a terrible, debilitating idol, that we are not to be consumed with what we consume, with food. Particularly, Jesus did teach us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," but only on a daily basis. God does meet those needs. The other thing I just want to point out here since we're talking about the environment, talking about becoming children of God, this only applies to Christians. If you are not a Christian, you are not a child of God. You're a creation of God. You are not yet a child of God. In and of ourselves, we are so rebellious and wicked and sinful that in and of ourselves, we are not children of God. We are rebels. God needs to send his Son, his ultimate Son, Jesus Christ, to live a perfect life that we would not live and to die the death that we deserve. We deserve that death for our wickedness, our disobedience, our preoccupation with material things, our idolatry. Jesus died on the cross for our sins, so that we could be adopted into the family of God. On the one hand, that sounds so exclusive. It is exclusive. If there were another way, God would provide another way. There was no other way. We're so sinful that that's what it took, the Son of God to die on the cross, but he's so loving that he was willing to take it. It is exclusive, but it's the most inclusive, exclusive truth in the history of the world. Everyone can become a child of God. So, if you, today, you're not sure, am I a child of God? You should be worried. If you're on the fence, you're not sure, you should be worried. Jesus here is saying, "Don't sweat the small stuff," but he's not saying don't sweat the soul stuff. You got to know where your soul is. Are you reconciled with God? Are you saved by grace through faith in Christ? Are you a child of God? If so, do not be anxious and focus on the Father. If not, repent of your sin, become a Christian today, a child of God by receiving God's gift of salvation, becoming adopted into his family. He goes on. He says, "Oh, as a child of God, God will take care of your life." That's verse 27. "And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?" In the original, in the Greek, it's talking about, "Can you add a single qubit to your height?" Obviously, you can't. It's a metaphor for life. Can you add a single minute? Can you add a single second to life? The point is that worrying is fruitless. It's foolish. It's pointless. It can't lengthen your life. It could actually shorten your life. Doctors tell us this all the time that stress has all kinds of physical implications. Worry effects not just the length of life, but also the quality of life. Here, we get into the sovereignty of God and his deep theological waters, but hang with me because I know you can, because you came to the early service when we lost an hour of sleep. We're going to talk about it real quick about the sovereignty of God over every single minute of our life real quick. God is sovereign, over everything, over every single detail of life, including the very second that we are conceived, including the very second that we are born, including the very second that we die. It's all predestined by a great sovereign God. Job 14:5, "Since his days are determined, and the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass." You have appointed his limits that he cannot pass. I'll never forget I was at a funeral of a family member and I heard a sermon on this text. They were saying, "There's nothing you can do to add a second, pass the second that God has allotted for you." He knows the very beginning. He knows the very end, limits that he cannot pass. Psalm 139:60, "Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." Every single day of your life is determined by God. This is something that you need to meditate on. But I'm telling you, once you do, once you realize that God is in charge over every single moment, every single second of your life, there's a freedom that fills your soul. Fear of death is absolutely removed. There's a fearlessness not in a responsibility, not a recklessness, but a fearlessness in that God has appointed for me a purpose in life. He's designed me in such a way to fulfill that purpose. He will give me the talents and the power of the Holy Spirit to fulfill that purpose. But the very second that I'm done fulfilling his purpose, he's taking me home. So, if you're still here, you have a job. You have a purpose to do. You have something to accomplish for God. So, he's saying this in the perspective. You can't lengthen your life. So, why worry? Worry is a sign that you don't adequately know the sovereign God. You don't adequately trust him. You haven't yielded to him. We are in the hand of God the Father. As Jesus says in the Gospel of John, "There's nothing to pull us out of his hand," but we try to. We try to pull ourselves out of his hand. We try to take the wheel from God into our own hands. He says, "Don't do that." He also said, "God will take care of your clothing." Matthew 6:28 through 30, "And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?" How often you think about clothing? Well, you thought about clothing today or you made a conscious decision about what you're wearing today. In my household, my wife and I, we don't just have to think about what we wear. We also have four little human beings, female human beings, little girls. We think about what they wear the night before, put all their clothing. They plan out their outfits. It's all very sweet. My daughter Elizabeth asked me today, "What are you preaching?" I said, "Not to worry about your outfits." We know, we think about this all the time. We think about clothing all the time. We're programmed that way. We're programmed that way through marketing. How big is the clothing apparel industry in the US? $368 billion. What's the size of the secondhand resale market? $28 billion, that's people getting rid of their stuff. What's the size of storage in the US? This is my favorite, $90 billion dollars, $90 billion when people don't have room in their place and then they go and rent space for their junk and they pay money for on a monthly basis, which doesn't make any financial sense to me. Take that, go put in a secondhand store, and then buy new stuff. We're worried. We're worried. Jesus says, "Don't be worried about the clothing. Look at the flowers, they don't work. They don't buy or earn in terms of their beauty. They just grow. They grow and God blesses them." Jesus brings in King Solomon. Even in the time of Christ, Solomon's royal regal opulence was proverbial. Everyone knew that he dressed well. Will he not much more clothe you? Of course, he will. He provide for us. Here, Jesus brings them in. This is the punchline. This is how he lands things, "O you of little faith?" This same phrase is used four other times in Matthew, little faith. Once where Jesus with the disciples in a boat on the Sea of Galilee and storm comes and they're freaking out as he's taking a nap. He gets up and he said to them, "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?" Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea and there was a great calm. He also told Peter when Peter wants to walk on water. He's going great. As he's focused on Jesus, he stops focusing on Jesus. He starts staring at the winds and the waves. He panicked. Jesus said, "O you of little faith." Jesus provided miraculously in terms of bread. He drove out demon of a little boy. Every time he's saying, "you of little faith, you of little faith." So, worry is fed by a little faith. So, meaning that the opposite of worry isn't just tranquility. The opposite of worry isn't just optimism that things will work out. The opposite of worry is faith. Faith on this side, the opposite of faith is worry, anxiety. Faith, lack of faith. So, actually worry, anxiety is equal to a lack of faith. It's practical atheism. At that very moment, you're practically not trusting that God exists. Or it's deism that God can't do anything. He's there, but he doesn't care. Or a finite theism, he doesn't have the power to be counted on. Jesus says here, "You're little in faith." You need to grow that faith. That's what he's getting at. The reason that you worry or you're anxious about material things is because your faith is little. It's there. That's great. As a child of God, God gives you the gift of faith. Now, we as children of God, we need to exercise that faith. We need to put pressure on that faith. We need to test that faith. It's like a muscle. You need to grow it by exercise, by using it with weight and reps. So, here, the question is, you got to ask, "Do I believe in God? God, do I believe in you? Do I believe that God is great and that he is good? Do I believe that God is greater than my greatest problem? Do you believe that God is bigger than your biggest problem?" Some of us, we have big faith, but because of a wrongheaded theology, we believe in a small God who's not sovereign, who isn't great and who isn't good. Big faith in a small God leads to anxiety. I'd rather have small faith in a big God. That small faith when exercised becomes a big faith. George Mueller, the great prayer warrior and minister of God said, "The beginning of worry is the end of faith. The beginning of faith is the end of worry." Mark 5:36, "Do not fear, only believe. God will take care of your needs." Matthew 6:31 through 32, "Therefore do not be anxious, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all." Again, do not be anxious. He puts anxiety on the level of being a pagan, a non-believer in Christ. Pagans, people don't trust in God, don't believe in God. They got a laser beam focused on the physical things of life, of having enough, of storing up, of making more. What he's saying is that these believers, the pagans, they're actually believers in that they have misplaced faith. They don't believe in God. They believe in something else. They believe in themselves perhaps, or they believe in having enough money, or they believe in having a correct career. In this sense, Jesus is saying that we are all believers, every single one. You can't but believe. You can't live life without exercising your faith. Every single one of us do. If you don't believe in God as ultimate, then you will believe in other things. You will believe in government. You will believe in politicians. You will believe in what the government tells you, what the CDC tells you, what the who tells you, what the people in authority in your company tell you. We believe these. You can't live without faith. Every time you get into an Uber, you trust that person. Every time you get in an airplane, you trust the pilot. Every time you go to a restaurant, you trust whoever prepared that food. That's faith. He's saying in this case, the pagans, they trust in themselves to provide for themselves. In a sense, they're living as orphans. Jesus is saying, "Stop, stop living as an orphan. Stop thinking, craving, desiring like the world. Don't seek after these things. Instead, seek after your Father. Stop living beneath the privilege of being a child of God. Stop living beneath the privilege of being a child of the King of the universe." I'm not saying the privilege is the financial stuff. I'm saying the privilege is greater than that. The joy, the freedom, the satisfaction that is ours in Christ Jesus, we experience royal freedom. There's two ways that you can ask a question about God and help. You can ask, "Will God help?" or you can ask, "How will he help?" If you ask, "Will God help?", you know that question. We've asked that question. That's a question riddled with anxiety and frustration... God, where are you? Do you even care? ... with despair. But when you are a child of God and you know that God is good and God is great, he will provide for you. You say, "How will he help?" I'm excited. It's filled with anticipation, confidence, eagerness, gladness. I can't wait to see how God will help. It completely changes the way that you live on a daily basis. So, look to God the Father. Third, seek after the kingdom. So, this is how Jesus really lands a whole section. This is Matthew 6:33, but contrast that with everything else, worrying about stuff, "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." It's about priority. What are we seeking first? Are we seeking material things and then secondarily spiritual things, or are we seeking first God, this kingdom and his righteousness? This is a question of living by faith or by sight. That's why he said, "O you of little faith, increase your faith." If you increase your faith, now, you begin to see life as you should, from internal perspective, spiritual perspective. Physical isn't all there is. Faith knows that worldly possessions and pleasure are temporary. Faith knows that worldly possessions and pleasures, they crowd out love and service to God. Faith knows that you need not worry about having enough for life because God our heavenly Father always cares. And then the other thing that he's use doing here is he's saying there's two ways to live. That's why he says, "They seek after stuff. You seek after spiritual things, God." There's only two ways to live either for your kingdom or for God's kingdom. So, we as God's children, we have to seek his role and his reign in our life. God, where am I not submitting to you? First thing in the morning, God, how can I serve you today? How can I honor you today? How can I further your kingdom today? Stop worrying about your little kingdom. Start seeking God's big kingdom. The word 'seek' here is zeteo in the Greek. It's a word that's used for a hunter, a hunter that's not hunting for sport, hunting for food. It's a hunter that every single one of his sense is on alert, focused, always on the lookout, bow and arrow ready. He's saying, "In the same way, Christians should be thinking, seeking." God, how can I further your kingdom? God, what can I do today to honor you as a servant of your kingdom? How do we overcome love of the seen with a love for the unseen God and Christ and the Holy Spirit and the Trinity? How do we do that? How do we get away from seeking stuff to seeking God's kingdom and trust God for taking care of all of other stuff in terms of priorities? How can we get rid of that? We get rid of that through the gospel. Whenever you see that in your heart, priorities are out of whack, you look to the gospel and you look to the cross of Jesus Christ. You say, "What's happening at the cross?" What's happening at the cross is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is meeting your greatest need. You don't have a greater need than to have your sins forgiven. You don't have a greater need than to have the debt of your sin forgiven. You don't have a greater need than the wrath of God being absorbed in the Son of God, so that you don't have to bear that wrath for all of eternity. When you look to the cross and you see what Christ did for you, because he loves you, will he not with that give you all things? Of course, he will. If he cares that much about your greatest need, he obviously cares about your lesser needs as well. This is what allowed the first century church to grow as it did. A lot of people look at Christianity and they're like, "Prove to me that Christianity is actually work of God. Prove to me that it's true." I just point to the growth of Christianity despite persecution. Islam grew the way it did by the sword. Christianity grew the way it did despite the sword. The early Christian, every single one of the disciples of Jesus Christ, except for John, who was exiled to Patmos, every single one of them, they went to the death, because they knew this is true. They knew that Jesus Christ did rise from the dead. They saw him with their own eyes and that they were willing to testify to the death. The early church was persecuted by Nero and by Caesars, et cetera. Despite the persecution, the early church grew by 40% per decade. So much so that by the fourth century, when Constantine's in power, he says, "How do I solidify? How do I consolidate my power? I'm going to pretend that I'm a Christian." No one really knows if he's a Christian. I think his wife became a Christian. But Christianity grew despite persecution. Why? Because they knew this was true. First of all, the eyewitnesses and then Christians later experienced the work of the Spirit in their heart. They knew that there was a treasure beyond the treasures in this life. Look at Hebrews 10:32-34. "But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened," after you became Christians, "you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. What's going on in that text? That means people who persecuted them for the faith said, "We are going to take everything you have unless you recant, unless you turn from Christ." They joyfully gave it up, because they had a treasure that was greater than that stuff. What in the world could do that in your hearts? The gospel of Jesus Christ, where you understand that no treasure is greater than of Christ. So, devote yourself to the gospel, which now begins to transform you. That's how we seek the kingdom and his righteousness, folks, in the Gospel. Love the gospel. Recognize what God has done for you through the gospel. We do that through Scripture. We do that by abiding with Christ by reading Scripture and prayer on a daily basis. Seek first. Before you do anything else on a daily basis, seek first the kingdom of God. You wake up. First thing you do, seek first the kingdom of God. Before coffee, with coffee, with coffee. We're not extremists here, with coffee. With coffee, you grab your Bible, you pray, you meditate, you worship God, you meditate upon God. Luke 10:41 through 42, this is Mary and Martha. "The Lord answered her, 'Martha, Martha, you are anxious,'" marimnao, "'and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.'" I bring this as an illustration because there's two concerns here. There's two anxieties here. There's two worries here. There's two seekings here. Martha is anxious and seeking about the physical things. It's a good thing. She wants to meet the needs of Christ and his disciples. Mary is concerned about the spiritual things. Jesus, teach me. Jesus, I want to set at your feet. Jesus, what do you have to say to me? I say that to set up the next text. This is Second Corinthians 11:24 through 28. This is St. Paul, who tells us in Philippians, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, present your requests to God." That same guy who says do not be anxious about anything, that same guy in Second Corinthians 11:24 through 28, he shows us every single thing that he's worried about, all of his persecutions that he experienced. He says, "Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false prophets; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And apart from all the other things..." That phrase is a set up. This is my greatest challenge. "... there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety," merimna, same word, "for all the churches." So, a guy that tells us, "Do not be anxious about anything," is telling us that he's anxious about the churches. This is what it looks like to seek first the kingdom of God. You care more about God and his cause and his kingdom and his churches, because that's how the gospel goes out that this is God's plan of reaching the world, to plant churches. You care about that more than physical things. Churches and planting churches, et cetera, serving other Christians that you know that you're committed to. I say that 1 Corinthians 12:21 through 26, this text is perfect. If anyone is wondering why churches practice church membership, why does Mosaic practice church membership? Read 1 Corinthians 12. "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you.' On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members," of the local church, of the body, of the local body, "may have the same care," marimnao, same word, "for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together." Part of seeking the kingdom and seeking the righteousness of God is also seeking, "How can I meet the needs of my brothers and sisters?" This happens in Mosaic naturally through community groups. We do our best to cultivate and we pray that God continues to do it, but this is something we need to ask ourselves on a daily basis, "Whom can I serve in my family? Whom can I serve in my local church family on daily basis?" Philippians 2:19 through 21, testament about Timothy, "I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned," marimnao, "for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ." Timothy's seeking the interests of Jesus Christ. How? By seeking the practical interests of the believers in Philippi. I want to serve you. Jesus, I want to serve you. Jesus, I want to honor you. Jesus, I want to love you. Jesus, I want to care for you. Jesus says, "What have you done for the least of the least?" That's what's going on in that text. He says, "Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added on to you." That's fascinating. It's fascinating because if you compare that to the teaching of Buddha, Buddha said, "Seek first the kingdom and you will need none of these things." Jesus says, "No." Jesus is realistic. He understands that we need physical things. We need food. We need clothing. We need a place to live. He knows these things. These things will be added on to you by the Father. If you care about the Father's priorities, the Father will take care of your needs. If you care about the Father's glory, he'll take care of your satisfaction, and not just your needs. This is fascinating, because in Philippians, it says, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, present your request to God, present your requests." The Psalmist says, "Delight yourself in the Lord. He will give you the desires of your heart." We have desires, unmet desires. Delight yourself in God. Seek first God. God's like, "I want to meet a desire. I want to meet a request," not a need, a request every once in a while. Sometimes he says no. The mother of James and John, Mrs. Zebedee comes to Jesus and says, "I request. I want you to meet this request before I tell you what the request is." Give me a blank check. He says, "What do you want?" She says, "I want my sons to sit at the right and the left of you in your kingdom." He said, "You know what you're asking? Can they suffer the way I suffer?" She says, "Yes, they can." "Okay, they will," he said, "but it's not it's not for me to..." He doesn't give her that. But then I think about Cana in Galilee where Mary comes to Jesus and they're at a wedding. She's like, "They're out of wine." Tell me, is wine a need at a wedding? Only if there's dancing involved, then wine is definitely a need. You can't have a dry wedding and dancing. You can't do that. It's either both or nothing. Is it a need? It's not a need. It's not a need. Just have some more water. Jesus is like, "Okay, here you go, a miracle." Every once in a while, but the point is that God is a good father. He'll provide what we need, not necessarily luxuries. But every once in a while, he blesses us beyond. Matthew 6:34, "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." This is fascinating, because he doesn't say there's no trouble ever. He's saying this trouble today. He recognizes. He recognized that today, there's unavoidable worry. He recognizes this. Today, there are things that you are concerned about. You should be concerned about, that you're responsible for. You should work to take care of those things. What he's saying is by saying, "Sufficient for the day is its own trouble," let's limit the concern and the worry for today. We only live in today. Stop being so focused on tomorrow, because we never live in tomorrow. When tomorrow comes again, it's today. Let's focus on today. That's what he's saying. Be responsible for today. By the way, this is a life hack. If you do what you need to do today, if you focus on taking care of everything you need to focus on today and you wake up and you say, "Today, I'm going to focus," and you just keep going, that leads to a very productive life for Christ. Let your requests be known to God. I thought he already knows them. Of course, he does. Prayer isn't about informing God. He already knows. Prayer is about releasing, releasing our burdens, casting them upon him. 1 Peter 5:6 and 7, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you." So, do you have anxiety? Do not turn to diversions. Do not turn to diversions. Instead turn and direct yourself to God, your burdens to God. The way to fight anxiety is with the promises of God. Romans 8:31-32, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" I'll give you some promises from Scripture that you can use to fight anxiety. When you worry about what people might do to you, look to Romans 8:31, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" When you worry about being too weak, recall 2 Corinthians 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." When you worry about future decisions, recall Psalm 32:8, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you." When you worry about whether God will fulfill his promises to you, recall Hebrews 6:8, where it says, "It's impossible for God to lie." When you worry about your loved ones, recall Matthew 7:11, "How much more will the Father give what is good to those who ask?" When you worry about physical sickness, recall Psalm 103:3, "He heals all your diseases." When you worry about getting old, recall Isaiah 46:4, "Even to your old age, I shall be the same, and even to your grain years, I shall bear you." When you worry about failing and falling, recall Philippians 1:6, "For I'm confident of this very thing that he will begin a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." Amen. Let's pray. God, we thank you that you are a great God and a good God. I pray that you strengthen our vision, our understanding of your greatness, of your sovereignty. As we look to a big God, I pray that you take our little faith and you expand it, that you make it more robust, that you solidify it. So, we become a people who never question your sovereignty, never question your character, never question your power, never question your love. You prove to us both your power and your love on the cross of Jesus Christ. Thank you, Jesus, for that. Because you met our greatest need, we thank you in advance for meeting the rest of our needs. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
Sermon on the Mount Week 7
March 7, 2021 • Matthew 6:19–24
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning and welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan, I'm one of the pastors here at Mosaic, along with Pastor Shane and Pastor Andy, and if you're new or if you're visiting, welcome. We're so glad you're here. We'd love to connect with you. We do that through the connection card, either the physical copy you can get in the back or the virtual one you can get either in the app or on the website. One quick announcement: Back in November, we had evening services focused on a meditation on God's Word for about 20 minutes and then prayer the rest of the time, so we had three weeks like that in November. We're restarting that next week, we'll do three weeks again, so here, 5:00 p.m. It's 5:00 p.m. No one's correcting me, so it's 5:00 p.m. 5:00 p.m. starting next Sunday, and that's to focus our time on the coming of Christ, why He came, and the last days of His life on earth, and that'll bring us to Good Friday and Easter. With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's holy Word. Heavenly Father, what a great God you are, that you, not forsaking us in our sin though we rebelled against your Kingship, you sent your Son Jesus Christ, who came to serve us. Our Lord came to serve us, humbled Himself to the point of becoming a servant, making Himself nothing to the point of even going to a cross. We thank you, Jesus, that you, the greatest treasure of the universe, God the Father gave you a name that is above all names, that you, the greatest treasure of the universe, you decided to sacrifice yourself in order to redeem us, to make us your own. I pray today, show us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, as you illuminate the Scriptures for us, enlighten our minds, I pray that you show us that, all too often, we give up our greatest treasures: our health, our time, our energy, our passion, our talents. We give it up for lesser treasures, idolatrous treasures that promise us if we serve them, they will save us, save us from mediocrity, save us from insecurity, save us from a lack of control, save us from a lack of comfort. And they never, they never, they never produce, they never give us what they promise, and we just keep sacrificing, keep giving, keep chasing, only to end up more dissatisfied and empty inside. And, Lord, show us that you came to save us from sin and from dissatisfaction and from an attempt to control our own lives. You came as a Savior to save us, and as you save us, you call us to serve you. And when we serve you, and when we give all of our energy, passion, desire, when we give everything to you, that's when we are most satisfied here in this life, and we get rewards in heaven. Lord, I pray that you bless our time in the Holy Scriptures, convict us where we need to be convicted, encourage us where we need to be encouraged, and we pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. So, we are in a sermon series through the Sermon on the Mount. This is Matthew 5 through 7, in which the greatest preacher who has ever lived, Jesus Christ, preaches the greatest sermon that has ever been preached. And in this sermon, Jesus Christ gives us the greatest paradigm shift that has ever been taught. Before Jesus Christ came, every single world religion, every single philosophy, everything in this world hinged on this paradigm: serve this, serve this god, serve this teacher, serve this politician, serve this rabbi, serve this thing, and it will save you. Serve to be saved. Do good works to be saved; that's every religion. How do you get into heaven in Islam, how do you reach nirvana in Buddhism or Confucianism, how do you get... In terms of politicians, they do this all the time: "Serve us, we will give you a brand new future. Serve us, we will save you from your current lack of salvation." And Jesus Christ comes in and says, "There's nothing you can do to be saved. Your situation is so hopeless, the world is so hopeless, there's nothing you can do to be saved, to save yourself. Instead, accept the salvation that I offer you freely, the salvation that I earned. And once you're saved, now serve me." So, the Sermon on the Mount can be misinterpreted to be read as, "This is what you do to get into heaven." Jesus Christ comes in and He says, "No, no, the kingdom of God is at hand, therefore repent. I'm offering you salvation. Repent." He's not denouncing us, He's not condemning us, He's actually inviting us to receive salvation: "The kingdom of God is at hand, repent and receive." So, once we're in the kingdom, now God says, "This is how you serve me. You've seen in me the greatest treasure that there is; now live for this greatest treasure a life to the fullness." So, Jesus Christ is a loving Lord and a powerful Savior, and what happens is, even as believers, we forget about this paradigm shift, that we serve because we have been saved, we serve because Jesus is already our Savior and Lord, so we need to be reminded that everything else is an overbearing lord and an impotent savior. And in particular, Jesus Christ wants to talk about money today. He wants to talk about treasures, that treasures and money themselves, it works on the old paradigm shift, that if you serve money, it will save you. It will save you from mediocrity, it will save you from discomfort, it will save you from a lack of security. "Serve me, serve me, sacrifice to get me, sacrifice your life, your power, your energy, everything you have. Delight in this treasure, and then, if you delight enough, then you get it." And Jesus Christ wants to show us it's a false idol. It never satisfies, it never delivers on what it promises. One of the things I say about Christianity is, a lot of people, when they're new to Christianity, they think Christianity is just something you add to your life. So, you tell someone, "Yeah, I'm a Christian, I go to church on Sunday," and they're like, "Oh, cool, you go to church on Sundays, I go to yoga on Sundays. You go to church on Sundays, I go play golf on Sundays. That's great." It's just an addition to your life. And I tell people, Christianity isn't like yoga or golf, where you add it to your life. It's like oxygen or gravity; it affects every part of your life. And this is why Jesus wants us to focus on money today, and He often focuses on money, because money is just the thing that's always around; it impacts every single aspect of our lives, and in particular, in a city like this, in a region like this, where the prices on everything are ridiculous. Prices on housing are ridiculous, prices... Just to exist here costs like three times more than anywhere else. I look at the housing prices here, and I look at the housing prices in Texas, and I'm like, "Oh my, what in the world is keeping me here?" It's the call of God, that's why we're still here. So, Jesus Christ talked about money more than faith, more than He talked about prayer, more than He talked about heaven or hell combined. That's how often He talked about money. Over 25% of the recorded words of Jesus in the Gospels are devoted to money. There's 28 passages. There's over 800 verses in Scripture discussing money. And the big idea of what Jesus wants to say to us today is, we either worship money or we worship with money. We either love money or we love with money and both God and neighbor. So, today we are in Matthew 6:19-24, Matthew 6:19-24. Would you look at the text with me? "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Where your treasure is... "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, the whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time. Look at the power of money over the heart, the powerlessness of money in satisfying the heart, and the power of the gospel over money by satisfying the heart. So, first, the power of money over the heart. If you read the whole metanarrative of Scripture, the whole council of God, in terms of looking at its teaching about money, one of the things you walk away with is almost the bipolar nature of the teaching on Scripture on money. On the one hand, there's Scriptures that clearly denounce money in terms of its hold on us, it warns about the dangers of wealth. And then you read passages where you become convinced that wealth ought to be pursued. It extols the virtues of wealth. I'll give you just an example. If you look at Solomon's Proverbs, the book of Proverbs, one of my favorite books in all of Scripture, 10 times, the word "wealth" is used in the Hebrew, 10 times. Half of the uses of the word "wealth" prize it, that we are to pursue it, and then half, the other half, are about how we are not to trust it. The issue isn't money, and this is what Jesus is getting at, the issue is the heart. Where is our heart in terms of wealth and materialism? Matthew 6:21, He says, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Did the treasure follow the heart, or does the heart follow the treasure? The answer is yes. It's interconnected, and that's why it's so dangerous. Matthew 6:24, "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." So, Jesus says money attempts to present itself as a savior on par with Jesus Christ, a savior who is Lord, and He says that's why it's so dangerous. Jesus is saying, "Be careful of money's sway over your heart. Be careful of its siren song, its mesmerizing." When you imagine having wealth... And I think it's funny in a day like this, where people are getting rich off of stonks and off of cryptocurrency, and you're like, "Oh, did I miss the boat?" And then all of a sudden, stock market drops, and then it's back, and it's like, "Oh," and you see people just all over social media, just sharing their wealth, "Oh, yeah, I own this Ferrari outright, yeah, just made in bitcoin last week," and you're like, "Oh, wow." It just so mesmerizes that realities can just change, your life can change so radically if you had X dollars, and so easy to just imagine "If I had this..." It is mesmerizing. And Jesus here, He's not just talking about money, He's talking about treasure in general. And what does it mean to treasure something? It means to fill your heart with it, fill your imagination with it, that this is of value. This is worthy of me. It's worthy of my life, so I'm going to pursue it, and it is going to add worth to me. It's going to make me somebody. Now we're getting into identity issues, that this is going to make me human, it's going to make me the person that I want to be, and this is why it's so powerful. And Jesus says, and this is the teaching of Scripture, whatever you ultimately treasure, that this is essential, that this is basic to reality, that this is the core of why I exist, whatever you treasure more than anything, you'll be enslaved by. Whatever you serve more than anything because it promises you salvation, it becomes a master over your life. So, you're willing to pay whatever price it takes to get X, Y, and Z, and you're willing to sacrifice whatever needs to be sacrificed, even if that means a relationship with God, even if that means a relationship with family, a relationship with friends, et cetera. And you might say, "Money's not really an issue. I have defeated greed in my life." Okay, first of all, you're probably struggling with pride and lying, that's number one. Number two, look at where your money goes freely, because it exposes your other idols. This is what money is so... It has such a powerful effect on us, because it promises other things. It promises experiences, perhaps sinful experiences. It promises a lifestyle, it promises significance and comfort and security, like, "If I have this, then I can control everything." It promises freedom. Freedom to do with my time whatever I want. This is what you've got to be careful of. That's why it's a parallel lord, it's a competing lord, because Jesus Christ, He offers us freedom, He offers us salvation, He offers us the most important things in life. So, look at your money, where it goes most freely, because often, we spend effortlessly and easily on things that are truly at the center of our existence. It might be clothing, it might be experiences, it might be an image that you want to create on social media, et cetera. It might be having people view you as having achieved things, et cetera. Now you're getting into acceptance. So, these are all the heart issues. For some people, they want money to control their world; therefore, they don't spend. Other people want money to get things that give them acceptance from people; therefore, they do spend, perhaps, on clothing or on their beauty or on attractiveness, et cetera. What is it about money that makes it so dangerous? Well, it's because it promises us things at the heart level that are so seductive, like security, power, comfort, and approval, beauty, purpose. It has a power to seduce the human heart because it has a power to seduce our desires, our dreams, our imagination. So, Jesus doesn't treat money as just neutral, though it is. Money is just neutral. But He knows that the power is so powerful over us, He treats it as benign so that we start asking ourselves not just "Am I greedy?" or "Am I materialistic?" but we are to ask ourselves, "How greedy am I? How materialistic am I?" That's the position from where Jesus starts. So, Matthew 5:22 and 23, there's kind of two verses that seem like they're out of context. He's talking about "Don't lay up treasures on earth, lay up treasures in heaven, you can't serve two masters, God and mammon," but in the center, He says this: "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" What's the connection between eyes and light and your body and money and treasures? What's going on here? He's saying, in the same way that eye health helps you understand the world around you, helps you understand the reality around you, He says in the same way, there's an eye of your heart that, if it is darkened, you begin to misunderstand life and the reality of life. And you can call that heart eye, you can call it devotion, or you can call it ambition. In the same way that our eyes help us see through vision and perspective everything around us, so ambition affects our entire life. And what He's saying is, a single-minded ambition to God helps us really see the world as it is, helps us see what really matters, helps us see what to devote our life to. And a single-minded ambition to serve self with money, all of a sudden, it blinds us, it distorts the way reality is, it distorts our understanding of the things around us. We know at the end, anybody at the end of their life on the hospital bed, they never say, "I wish I had earned more money. I wish I had spent more time on my career." What do they always say? "I wish I had spent more on my relationships and invested more." It's like, at the end of their life, they begin to see life clearly, but during your life, you did not. And this is really the eye and the vision, the spiritual vision that Jesus Christ is talking about, and the reason why the mind's eye gets clouded, gets fogged up is because of pride. And this is really why money is so dangerous and nefarious. What made Satan Satan? What made Satan Satan was pride. He all of a sudden thought that he was so great that God should worship him, that God should serve him. It was pride. So, Satan then tempts Adam and Eve with the same thing, with pride: "You will be as gods." And then Satan comes to us with money, and this is the temptation that every single one of us is susceptible to. He says, "If you have money, you will be like a god. You will have everything. You will have control, you will have security, you will live the life that you want to live. You will be in charge of your own destiny." And when you get money, the pride is fed, and you think, all of a sudden, "You know what, I am self-reliant, I am independent of God," perhaps, and you become overconfident in your own powers. Bernard of Clairvaux said, "To see a man humble in the midst of prosperity is the greatest rarity in the world." New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg calls stewardship of material possessions "the most important test case of one's profession of discipleship." He says, "Materialism is the single biggest competitor with authentic Christianity for the hearts and souls of millions in our world today." So, we talked about the power of money over the heart, and now I want to talk about the powerlessness of money in satisfying the heart. Everyone knows that the love of money is the root of all evil. There's even memes out there like, "No, it's not money that's the root of all evil, it's the love of money." We all know that. Everyone will say that money can't buy true happiness. Every religion teaches its adherents that you can't buy with money what you're really looking for. Every philosophy of any consequence taught the same thing. Seneca in the first century, a Stoic philosopher and moralist, he said, "It's not the one who has too little but the one who desires more who is poor." In Luke 16:14, talking about the Pharisees, it says, "The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed Him," Jesus. The Son of God is before them, and the Son of God is teaching about the way of life, and they're so blinded by their love of money that they ridicule Him. Does money satisfy, does it give peace and tranquility? No, of course not, because you always think about, like, "I just need a little more, a little more, a little more." And then, if you start getting into investing, and then you start thinking about opportunity costs, like, "If I buy this thing, then I can't invest the money, and I can't make interest on the money," so then, all of a sudden, you're like, "No..." And you're just thinking about more, more, more, "I could make more"; it has power over you. Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus says, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." So, now Jesus is giving us two perspectives on life. The first perspective is that the material is all there is, this life is all there is, and life is short, so you should make the most of it and get the most out of life. And Jesus says, "No, no, no, this life isn't all there is. There's an eternity before us in two places, either heaven or hell, and what we do here in this life impacts our eternity, and not just our eternity but the eternity of others, so we should lay up treasures there, not on earth." The pronouns in verses 19 and 20, where He says "for yourselves" and "you" and "your," those are plural, so, we as a community need to remind ourselves of this truth. And then, in verse 21, it's singular: "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." It's very direct, it's very personal. He's just asking, "What about you? Is your heart wrapped up in earthly treasure and the pursuit of it and laying it up," that's the emphasis here, "and storing it up and gathering and hoarding? And how do you know that this is a problem? Because you just want to accumulate more and more and more for this life and for yourself." That's the emphasis here. He talked about moth and rust, that they impact our treasures, and He is talking about the impermanence of wealth, it comes and goes, the insecurity of it. The rust, it's not the ordinary word for rust, it's more like decay or rot. If it's not used, it rots, and there's all kinds of examples of this now. Apparently we're printing another $1.9 trillion, and we just printed $1.9 trillion; I think we're up to around four, so what's that going to do to inflation? I don't know. Gas prices are up, grocery prices are up, real estate prices are... I have no idea. That's moth and rust. And thieves from the government, that's the other thing here. It's in the Greek. Back then, there weren't banks, there was no FDIC, so the way you stored money was in strongboxes you bury in your floor in the ground of your home. Excavation of large homes in Pompeii uncovered strongboxes, small fortunes. But what Jesus here is saying is, when you put your trust in impermanent things, that trust is fickle, it's not going to deliver. That's what Jesus is saying; what Jesus isn't saying, He isn't saying "Don't work and don't save." He's not saying that. We see in other passages that if you don't work, you shouldn't eat, and that if we are to work... So, there's a passage in Thessalonians that a thief comes to salvation, and St. Paul writes to him and says, "Hey, let the thief no longer steal. Let him work so that he may share with others." So, we are called not just to provide for our own needs, but work in such a way where we have an excess to be generous with others. And Jesus isn't forbidding accumulation of wealth; Deuteronomy 8:10, "You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day." And Christ also isn't forbidding saving for the future of you and your family. St. Paul talks about, it's parents that need to save for their children. Proverbs talks about, the wise man doesn't just save for his children but his children's children. Proverbs 6:6-8 says, "Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest." So, He's talking about this industrious nature that every single person should have, every single Christ in particular, where we wake up to work, not because of our manager or our boss, we wake up to work because we have a greater boss, and we're going to work for Him from the heart, not as for men. So, we're taught to provide for self, for others, we're taught to provide for relatives. So, if you start a family, or even before marriage and children, parents and extended family, Scripture says whoever doesn't provide for his relatives is worse than an unbeliever. They're saying, "How can you say you love God and you love neighbor when you aren't caring for your closest neighbor?" And our closest neighbor is our family members. And Jesus isn't condemning enjoying things. He's not calling us to asceticism, as was taught in the early church and the Catholic Church as well. 1 Timothy 6:7, "As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy." So God is a good God, and He's a Father, and He does give good gives to His children, sometimes just because. "Just because you're my kids." Yesterday, my wife and my daughters and I, we went to Crane Beach, one of my favorite places in all of New England, if you haven't been, you got to go, and then walked to the mansion. And then after, you know what, we stopped at Nick's Pizza and Subs in Beverly. Why? Because they have the best calzone in the North Shore. It's not even up for debate. Why do we like calzones? I don't know they're just... It's a glorious food. It's terrible for you. But we talked about fasting last week, so you fast, and then you go to Nick's. But why did I buy them calzones? Just because. Because I like watching their little pudgy... My youngest I can say that about. Little pudgy face down a calzone, because it brings me joy, that's why. God loves to give good gifts to His children. You see that all throughout holy Scripture. So, it's not about... He's not condemning work, He's not condemning making money, He's not condemning wealth, He's not condemning savings. He's condemning trusting in those things. He's condemning making those things central, because the core of why you exist, the basic reason of why you do everything you do, it's not about wealth, it's about loyalty. It's about devotion. And a wealthy person can be devoted to the Lord's cause, while a poor man can be utterly indifferent. It's not about money, it's about our heart. And Proverbs 30:7-9 says, "Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, 'Who is the Lord?' and lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God." The question is, "Does this pull me away from God," and that could be either poverty or riches that pull you away from God, "or does this life situation I'm given to steward by the Lord, do I use that in order to deepen my affections for God?" Sometimes when you have wealth and you give to the Lord, to the Lord's work, you give to the needy, there's such a blessing that fills your heart, and that's why Jesus Christ said it's more blessed to give than to receive. Just thankfulness, Lord, thank you for giving me this opportunity to give, and thank you for giving me this opportunity to bless another person, and it just reminds me of how much you have blessed me. Psalm 62:10, "Put no trust in extortion; set no vain hopes on robbery; if riches increase, set not your heart on them." Scripture does not forbid that we seek the kingdom of God. We are to seek the kingdom of God. It does forbid that we seek the kingdom of us, where we build a kingdom for ourselves, where we are the king and we do as we please. Ecclesiastes 5:10, "He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity." So, money's value, it's limited. It can't stop death, it can't stop tragedy, it can't stop heartache. It's not God. Money can't buy... It can buy medicine, but it can't buy health. It can buy a house but not a home. It can buy companionship but not friends. It can buy entertainment but not happiness, it can buy food but not an appetite, it can buy a bed but not sleep, it can buy a crucifix but not a Savior. Money can buy the good life but not eternal life. And Jesus is speaking about treasure from this perspective. Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth primarily, but use your treasures on earth to lay up treasures in heaven, either financially or other treasures that we have, like health and time and our talents, for the kingdom of God, because ultimately, that's what lasts. Jesus is saying, in view of eternity, in view of judgment day, in view of two different destinies in the world to come, view Scripture, view treasure like that. Bernard of Clairvaux, who spent a lot of time meditating on riches and treasure, he said, "There are no greater miseries than false joys." And what he's talking about is loving things that aren't going to love you back, and giving your life to temporal things of no ultimate consequence. Joys that don't last and also distract you from eternity are the most false joys of all. The greater problem isn't that you can't take your money with you. That's what a lot of people say: "Invest in relationship because you can't take your money with you." That's not the greatest problem. The greatest problem is, when you devote yourself to money and to the things that are temporary, the material, without repenting of the sin of making that central, you are incurring the wrath of God. That's really the biggest danger of money, is that it sets you on a path away from God, and that path leads to an eternity away from God, a place called hell. That's why Jesus, in a parallel passage on treasures, Luke 12:15-23, talks about the rich fool. "And he," Jesus, "said to them, 'Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.' And he told them a parable, saying, 'The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, "What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?" And he said, "I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.'" But God said to him, "Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.' And he said to his disciples, 'Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.'" He was rich toward himself but not rich to God. God blesses him with an abundant harvest, and instead of building greater barns, destroying the old ones, building greater barns, he should've thought, "What can I do to further the cause of God, the kingdom of God? With whom can I be generous with this excess that I do not need?" That's what it means to be generous toward God, rich toward God, by taking surplus that God gives us and just knowing that God gives us not just for ourselves, not just to increase our standard of living, but to increase our standard of giving. 1 Timothy 6:9-10, "But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs." 1 Timothy 6... And by the way, this is a test of... Many of you are very successful in our careers, and you will only become more successful in your careers. So, really, the question here is, "How does this impact, how does my career, how does my job, how does my wealth impact my relationship with God? Does it draw me closer to Him? Does it make me more devoted to Him? Do I want to participate even more wholeheartedly in what He is doing, in the building of His kingdom, and furthering the common good?" That's the emphasis there in verse 10, that they walked away, wandered away. 1 Timothy 6:17-19, "As for the rich in the present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasures for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life." So, money is temporary, vulnerable, it rots and rusts and disappears; it doesn't satisfy the heart. And then, point three is the power of the gospel over money by satisfying the heart. So, when God does bless us with wealth, how can we make sure that that is a blessing to us and blessing to those around us? It's by seeking heart satisfaction in the gospel, in the Lord. Matthew 5:6, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." Doesn't say "Blessed are those who are hungry and thirsty for blessing." It doesn't say "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for satisfaction." It doesn't say "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for money or wealth." "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." So, when we hunger and thirst for the righteousness of Jesus Christ that He gives freely, and then hunger and thirst to live out that righteousness by the power of the Holy Spirit, that's where satisfaction comes. Matthew 6:31-33, a text we're going to look at next week, dealing with anxiety, in particular about physical things: "Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Seek God first, primarily, with everything that you got. And by the way, this... Practically, seek God with your first fruit of your energy of the day. First thing that you should be doing isn't checking Robinhood or your Coinbase when you wake up, or Twitter, whatever, or your bank account. First thing you should be doing is seeking the face of God. And by that, that just reminds you that God is primary, the kingdom of God is primary, and then you set your heart on God through Scripture and prayer, and you say, "God, how can I seek your kingdom today in everything that I do? In my job, how can I be a blessing to my employer and the people I work with? How can I be a blessing to them? How can I further the common good? How can I do this to the glory of God? How can I be faithful in discipling people? How can I be faithful in evangelism?" Seek first the kingdom of God, to glorify God and His righteousness, and He says, "All these things will be added to you." What things? The physical things. God knows what you need before you even ask, and God does provide, as a good Father, all of your needs. And by needs, He's talking about our basic needs of food and clothing. In Hebrews, it says, "Keep yourself free from the love of money." "Keep yourself free from the love of money, for God says, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.'" God the Father will always provide when we rely on Him, seek the kingdom of God first. And that's really the conversation here, is how do we overcome the love of money? How do we overcome the consuming power of consumption? You do that by recognizing that Jesus is King, and I am not. Jesus is King, and I am not. I cannot build a kingdom here on earth when Jesus calls me to submit to Him and enter His kingdom. So, this is the first thing about becoming a Christian, if you're not a Christian, if this is new. You need to recognize that I have sinned against a holy King, I have sought treasures that are above Him as the greatest treasure. I'm not in the family, I've sinned against Him. I have coveted, I have been greedy. This stuff has consumed me. And this is what Jesus says: "Accept my salvation. Repent of your sin. The kingdom of God is here. Accept my salvation." We do that by repenting of sin. And then Jesus, once we're saved, He gives us entrance into the kingdom of God, and now He says, "Now serve me," and this service is what gives you the deep satisfaction that you're looking for. This is the way that we enter the family, and Jesus tells us how we are to grow in the family. Matthew 6:27-30, "And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown in the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?" It's about faith. Are we rich in faith? If we're rich in faith, we'll be rich in everything that matters, we'll be rich in satisfaction. If we're poor in faith, then we'll never be content. So, how do we break the power of money? We worship God, that's how. We worship God, He fills our heart with love for Him, love for people, and now we don't have to use God to get money, we don't have to use people to get money. We use money to love God and to love people, and that's what He gets at in verse 24: "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." Jesus offers us two options, very categorical. There's one way to heaven; all the other, the rest of the ways lead to hell. One way to have your sins forgiven, to have eternal security; that's by repenting of sin and loving God as your King, as your Savior. Therefore, He says, are you devoted to God, or do you despise Him? And if you're like, "I'm indifferent to God," or you're like, "Yeah, I'm not really sure," then you're in the despising category. It's one or the other; He gives us two options. If you don't love Him, you hate Him; you're either devoted to God or you despise Him. Devotion given to either money, ultimately, or God in this context. I'll give you two test cases from Scripture, two test cases about the hold of money on people and how that hold can be broken. The first test case is the story of Judas. At the Last Supper, Jesus says, "One of you is going to betray me," and the disciples don't all point to Judas and say, "Yeah, he's the one," although they spent three years with him. You ever find that fascinating, that they had no idea? And Judas, the guy who sold Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver, he was the treasurer. You ever find that funny, that Jesus Christ allowed this guy to be the treasurer? Why did Jesus allow that? I think Jesus allowed that as a test. "Judas, I'm going to test your heart. Do you really love me above treasure? Am I a greater treasure than treasure for you?" Jesus puts a thief in charge of the money bag. He could've put Nathanael in charge of the money bag, Jesus called him "an Israelite indeed in whom there was no deceit"; or John, the disciple whom Jesus loved; or Levi, who had extensive financial experience. It was Judas. He put Judas in charge of it, who then, Judas, after the Last Supper, goes and sells Jesus Christ, betrays Him and shows us the heart-hardening, the heart-blinding, the heartbreaking effect of treasuring the wrong thing. He was in the presence of the Son of God for three years, and the Son of God was less of a treasure for him than what the Son of God could give him, and ended up leading to his destruction and his suicide. The other example is the story of Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was an arch tax collector. He was a tax collector above all the tax collectors in Israel. Israel was oppressed by the Roman Empire; the Roman Empire siphon off wealth from Israel, tax them heavily, and they did that by selling licenses to be a tax collector to the people of Israel. People in Israel could buy these licenses for an exorbitant amount of money, and then whoever bought this as a tax collector could go and force people of Israel, his own brothers and sisters, his own people, to pay exorbitant taxes, and they had the full power of the military to do it. And, by the way, it was a business opportunity; they didn't just go and say, "You know, I bought this license to collect taxes for 100 grand; I'm going to get 110 grand." No, he would go and collect 400 grand, four times more than what he paid for. So, Zacchaeus was hated by his people, he wasn't satisfied with what he had, and then he hears about Jesus Christ in Luke 19:1-10. It says, "He entered Jericho," Jesus entered Jericho, "was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up on a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way." And by the way, this was extremely humbling, humiliating for a man in Israel to climb a tree. So he climbs a tree, "And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, 'Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.' So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled," that's the Pharisees, "'He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.' Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, 'Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.' And Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.'" Zacchaeus was lost. He was lost because he had followed the siren song of wealth, and he was willing to sin in any way possible to get as much as possible, realized that he did not get from wealth what it promised. Wealth told him, "Serve me and I'll save you." Zacchaeus realized it did not save him. Jesus Christ comes and says, "I'm offering you salvation. I came to seek and save that which was lost." He offers him salvation, offers him forgiveness of all sins. That changes Zacchaeus' live, it changes his heart, and now he becomes generous, exorbitantly generous, promised to give away 50% of his income, four times what he had stolen, incredible generosity. Zacchaeus did not... He wasn't generous to get salvation. This isn't how he earned salvation. Jesus comes into Zacchaeus' life, He says, "Now you're saved. I've forgiven you. I see your heart, I see your repentance," and that leads to service of Jesus Christ. How can Jesus just save us? How can He just forgive our sins? Well, you can't just do that. This is why Jesus Christ came, and He died on the cross for our sins. The greatest treasure of heaven comes down, and He dies for us because He treasured us. He realized that there is one sure investment. There's one sure investment, and that investment is into eternity, and Jesus invested all of Himself into eternity in order to give us access to eternity by dying on the cross for our sins. If you make anything other than Jesus your greatest treasure, it will drive you, it will control you, it will demand that you sacrifice and die for it. But Jesus is the only treasure that dies for you. He died to get you, and when you see that, you will be transformed, and He becomes the greatest treasure in your life. Romans 8:31-32, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" And 2 Corinthians 8:9, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich." Jesus Christ's grace breaks our love for the material world, for things, so money can be a vehicle to love God, to build His kingdom, and love the people around us. That said, we are going to transition to celebrating Communion. We celebrate Communion at Mosaic the first Sunday of every month. For whom is Communion? Communion is for repentant believers in Jesus Christ. So, if you are not a Christian, if you have not repented of your sins and trusted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service; it'll do nothing for you. Unless you do today repent of your sin and trust in Jesus Christ and follow Him, then you're welcome to partake. And then, repentant Christians, so if you are a Christian who is repentant of sin, you're welcome to partake. If there's sin in your life that you have not repented of, that you have not decided to leave, that you're still clinging on to, we ask that you refrain from Communion; instead, focus on repentance. But if you do repent, you're welcome to partake. The way that we take part in Communion is we have this little cup with the little bread on top. If you have not received one and you would like to partake, raise your hand, and one of our ushers will bring you one. At this point, as you open up the top, take the bread, and open up the other top, I'll pray, and then we'll partake in Holy Communion. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have loved us so much that you gave your greatest treasure, your Son Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins. One of those sins that you died for is our greed and our covetousness, our desire to build our own kingdom, our idolatry, and often when we treasure things above you. We repent of that. We repent of how susceptible we've been to the lie of Satan, that if we pursue finances, we can create a reality where we are free from you, independent from you and gods ourselves. We repent of that. And we ask, Jesus Christ, that you forgive us, and we thank you for offering us a way of forgiveness by dying on the cross for our sins. You experienced the wrath of God on behalf of us, and this is why you cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus, you were forsaken by the Father so that we would never have to be, because all we have to do is trust in you and our sins are forgiven. You save us. As you save us, you call us to serve you. We don't do it perfectly, and when we fall, you offer us more grace, and you pick us up and say, "Follow me." Holy Spirit, we thank you that you are with us today and bless our time in Holy Communion. We pray this in Christ's name, amen. On the night that He was betrayed, Jesus took the bread, and after breaking it, He said, "This is my body, broken for you. Take, eat, and do this in remembrance of me." He then proceeded to take the cup, and He said, "This cup is the cup of the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for the sins of many. Take, drink, and do this in remembrance of me." Jesus, we thank you that you are our greatest treasure. We pray that you continue, by the power of the Spirit, to remind us over and over and over that there's nothing in this world that will satisfy other than you. And make our heart's eye focus on you, be devoted to you, so that we take everything that you've given us and every single day, full tilt, live to the glory of God and the joy of all people. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.
Sermon on the Mount Week 6
February 28, 2021 • Matthew 6:1–18
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning. Welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan. I'm one of the pastors here along with Pastor Shane and Pastor Andy, and if you're new or visiting, we'd love to connect with you. Do that through the connection card, either the physical copy that you can get at the door, or the virtual one that you can get at the website or in our app. That said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's Word? Heavenly Father, we thank you that you sent Jesus Christ, the Divine Word of God, the law God through whom you created absolutely everything in Jesus, you came. And you lived a perfect life, a life of perfection as decreed by God the Father. And you did that in order to present yourself as a substitute, as a sacrifice for our sin, for our lack of perfection, or even a lack of desire to pursue moral perfection. And Jesus, we thank you for the sermon on the mountain, which you show us the way into the kingdom of God is not through anything that we do. It's not through pretending to be righteous. It's through repentance of the fact that we are not righteous. That's how we enter. And then you do call us to the same standard of perfection. And we do understand that there's a gap between our performance and your standard of perfection. And we have two options with that gap of what to do. Either we can pretend that we have met that gap with our own righteousness, or we repent and keep going. Let us be at people who, like Saint Paul said, "Not that I'm already perfect or have attained perfection, but forgetting what lies behind, pursuing what lies ahead, I press on to seek the goal of the upper call of Christ, of God in Christ Jesus." Holy Spirit, come in to this place and show us how to fight hypocrisy on a daily basis by rooting our identity in you. We are accepted because of the sacrifice of Christ. We are yours. You know every single one of our sins, past, present, and future. And Jesus, you died on the cross for those sins. Everything was exposed there on the cross. Therefore, there's no need to cover up our sin, our lack of righteousness. There's no need to pretend. We can come to you, we can repent, and we can receive grace to keep going. And I pray that you bless our time with the holy word today and we pray this in Christ Jesus' name. Amen. Today, we are dealing with everyone's favorite topic of hypocrisy. We love hypocrisy, especially anyone else's hypocrisy. We love pointing out other people's hypocrisy, and we have lived through a day and age where hypocrisy has been evident. There's a spotlight on hypocrisy in all kinds of realms. I'll start with the easiest one of politics. The politicians who say put your masks on, they got the mask on, camera turns off, mask is off. Politicians who say, "No, you can't get your haircut. No haircuts for you, haircut only for me. Salon opens up just for me." Politicians who say, "No indoor dining except for me and my 15 closest friends and without social distancing." Politicians who say, "No travel, you can't travel, no vacations for any of you." And then they come back from Mexico with a nice tan. We see that in politicians. We see that in leaders in academic and all kinds. I think the most dangerous kind of hypocrisy is that of spiritual hypocrisy. Why? Because it has the greatest consequences, eternal consequences, not just for ourselves, but also for our testimony to others. When people see that we proclaim Christ with our mouth, but our lives are far from that profession of faith, it shakes people to the core. So one of the things I want to talk about today is how Jesus talks about hypocrisy. He doesn't talk about hypocrisy of do as I say, not as I do. That's the hypocrisy that we see in politics and in all kinds of realms. Jesus isn't talking about the hypocrisy of do as I say, but not as I do. He's not talking about that. He's talking about the hypocrisy of this is what I do. But in my heart, things are very different. It's not a disconnect between what we say and what we do. It's a disconnect between what we do and what we really want to do. It's a disconnect between what we do with our hands and what we do in our hearts. And Pastor Shane preached a masterful sermon last week landing, closing off Matthew five. But Jesus drops a bomb in Matthew 5:48 with this conclusion. He says, "Therefore you must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." So as children of God the Father, we have to emulate God the Father, who is absolutely perfect. He's holy, we are to grow in holiness. The goal is perfection. We're always to be pursuing perfection, full tilt, not that we'll ever attain it. But we always need to be aspiring to it. Obviously, we'll never achieve it. But there has to be growth, there has to be forward momentum. But the challenge is, what do we do with the gap, with the missing piece between our reality and the reality that God calls us to? Our reality, where we are now in our walk with the Lord and the perfection that God calls us to? What do we do with this gap, with this missing piece? Do we pretend that it isn't there? That's what Jesus is addressing today. Do you pretend to be better than you are? And do we cover it up with a mask of hypocrisy? And all of us do this to an extent. No one shows everybody just how sinful we are. It's too scary. We don't reveal our greatest struggles to everyone, but we should reveal them to God. And we should reveal them to ourselves. And that's where true transformation happens. You have a choice of what to do with that missing piece. You can either pretend that it's not there or you can repent and be honest with yourself and be honest with God. C.S. Lewis, talking about prayer, he said this. He said, "May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real thou I speak to." It's about being real with God. And that's how we fight religion works righteousness. There's a difference between religious righteousness and real righteousness. Religious righteousness focuses primarily on behavior. Just change your behavior. Just fix how you act. Real righteousness is all about the transformation of the heart. It's about embracing that what God is calling us to in the heart, God I love you, and I love your standards and I want to pursue moral perfection and I know I can't do it enough myself. Forgive me, give me grace, give me the power of the Holy Spirit. And that's what transforms you from being religious to being a real follower of the Lord. Religion is all about what you do. Real Christianity is why you do it. Purify the why, and the what will take care of itself. And this is how we develop true spiritual character, not just grow, and being and playing the role of spiritual characters. So today, we're in Matthew six, one through 18. I'm going to read the whole text here to set up our time, and we'll dig right in. Matthew six, one through 18. "Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. That's when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. So that your giving may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites for they love to stand and pray at the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their award. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father, who is in secret. Your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them. For your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray then like this. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points just to frame up our time. First, we look at hypocritical mercy, prayer and fasting. Then we'll look at authentic mercy, prayer and fasting. And then we'll dig into the motivation for authenticity. First of all, hypocritical mercy, prayer and fasting. So Jesus demands perfection. It's hard to pursue perfection so instead of pleasing God the Father, in pursuing perfection, we often settle in pleasing not God the Father, but the people around us. So that's why verse 48, 5:48, Jesus says, "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." Command, and then the very next verse, he says, "Be careful to not practice your righteousness in front of people." Be perfect. Be careful. Why? Because Jesus is fully aware of our propensity, our heart's propensity for self deception. So this is verse one, "Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you." This can be metaphorical or literal. The Pharisees would actually hire musicians to go on ahead of them to say, "We're handing out money. So everyone meet us at the crossroads intersection.", in order to draw attention to themselves, "As the hypocrites do in the synagogues, in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly I say to you, they've received their award." Verse five about prayer, they're praying in the street corners and synagogues, "That they may be seen by others." So their primary prayer life is public that they may be seen. How do you know that you are a hypocrite in prayer? You know you're a hypocrite in prayer when perhaps that community or with a group of other Christians, you pray to God, but when you are with God one on one, you have nothing to say. And you're bored with God. God has become a friend of a friend. When there's someone else there who knows God better, you can connect with God. But when you're on your own, you don't have a living relationship with Him. It gets kind of awkward, you have nothing to say. It's hypocrisy there. Verse 16 talks about fasting. "When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others." So their goal, hypocritical spirituality, hypocritical piety is to please people. And here we are faced with a question. Honestly, what is more valuable to you, people's opinion of you, or God's opinion of you? People's approval and acceptance of you, or God's approval and acceptance of you? Do you fear people more than God? Fear of people, fear of God, the age old question. And this is really important, because we crave attention, acceptance, approval. We are approval junkies, so to speak. We do things for the proverbial slap on the back. So people notice, and people give you encouragement, kudos, good job. And how does this apply? So my wife and I were talking about how does this apply in real life, because no one's walking around and praying on streets. No one's walking around with a trumpet and saying, "Hey, come to this intersection, and we'll give money." No one's really doing that. Well, one of the places this hypocrisy really applies is within the church community itself. And that's what Jesus, the Pharisees were in that religious community. And that's kind of where to play. And how does this work out in real life? I'll just give you a few examples. When a guy sees a really great Christian girl who loves the Lord, and he wants to pursue her in dating or courting or dating or marriage, whatever, and all of a sudden, now he's in community group. Now he is serving. Now he's carrying his Bible around with him. Now he's memorizing Bible verses. Now he's really worshiping. Now he's really getting into loving God. It's great if that's real and vice versa. It could be a gal pursuing, getting attention. Sometimes it's husbands and wives, you want to score points with your spouse. And you do that with morning devotion and coffee, "Baby, I made you coffee. And by the way, I'm reading scripture." And all of a sudden, she's like, "My spouse is so spiritual." It could work that way. Children and parents, parents with children, we want our kids to think that we are sometimes better Christians than we really are. So we pretend around them and kids definitely, with parents, if you grew up in a Christian house, you know exactly how you need to act with your parents in a way for them to get off your back with your with your Christianity, so that you can do what you really want. I've seen this play out and I was like this is my favorite thing. It's not my favorite thing. But I see it too often. It's comical to me. Every September, every September, some college student comes up to me to introduce themselves, and they make an effort for me to remember their names. And I'm like, "That's weird. Never met you before. Cool." The very next Sunday is parents' weekend. Their parents fly up from Texas, from Georgia, and then they bring their parents to me, "Hi, Pastor Jan." And I'm like, my first two years of ministry, I had no idea what's going on. And then after that, I never see him again. I was getting played. I was getting played by hypocritical Christian college students. So does this apply to us? Yes, yes. Why? Because we want people to think good, it feels good for people to think that we are good. It feels good for people to think that we are doing the right things. And like there, then you would ask why the desire to do good. Why the desire to be approved of doing good because there's a moral compass in every single one of our hearts, and we know that it's better to be good than bad. And for many non Christians, this right here, people's approval is also a hang up for two ways. First, you say as a non Christian, why do I need the gospel? Everyone around me thinks I'm a good person. I'm already a good person, because I have the approval of the people around me. And here, what Jesus is getting at is the approval of the people around you doesn't matter as much as the approval of God. What does God think of you? What's the point of getting approval from fallen people who have lowered the standards of God? Or sometimes with unbelievers, you're interested in the Gospel, you understand your need for grace, you understand your need for God in your life, you understand your need for repentance, but you understand also that if you devote yourself to God, if you become a Christian, you will lose the approval and acceptance of the people in your life, perhaps the people in your office or your family or your community. John 12:42-43. "Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him but for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it so that they would not be pulled out of the synagogue for they love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God." This ravenous hunger for the approval and praise of people was the besetting sin of the Pharisees, and often it's the besetting sin of ourselves. We crave the approval of people. John 5:44, "How can you believe when you receive glory from one another, and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" Jesus here says several times do not do as the hypocrites do, but he doesn't just say it like that. He says, "Do not be like the hypocrites.", verse five, in verse eight, "You must not be like the hypocrites, do not be like them." Now he's getting not just at action but at identity. He's not just saying, "Do not do what the hypocrites do." He's saying, "Do not be like the hypocrites." He's getting at identity. What were the hypocrites rooting their identity in? What were they? They were rooting their identity in what people thought of them. Look at them, they pray so well. Look at them, they give. They're so generous. Look at them, they fast. They're so self controlled. They're so righteous. They're so godly. Their identity was being rooted in the approval of people. And Jesus says, "Do not be like them. Don't root your identity in people's approval. Root your identity in God's approval." What is a hypocrite? Basically, in Greek, the word means actor, acting consciously or unconsciously, where the outside contradicts the inside. And you're so much better on the outside. The facade is so much nicer than the inside. Hypocrisy and this is what I'll just say because a lot of people are like, "Christians are all hypocrites. I don't go to church because there's too many hypocrites there." And my answer to that is join the club. There's plenty of room. Welcome. We're all hypocrites. So in one sense, we all struggle with it. So what is hypocrisy? Hypocrisy is not failing to live up to standards that you set or that God sets. That's not hypocrisy. That's human frailty. We're all sinners. We're all broken. And we are to pursue perfection through repentance. So hypocrisy isn't failing to live up to the standards that you aspire to. It's pretending to meet them, while failing to embrace them with your heart. It's pretending to meet the standards of God, "Yes, I've arrived or yes, I'm pursuing these standards." But deep in your heart, you're not. Deep in your heart, you're pursuing other things. And we talked about this in terms of imagination. Well, God doesn't captivate your imagination, something else does. So in your heart, you can be a wicked sinner pursuing wicked things. But on the outside, you look like everything's wonderful. That's the hypocrisy Jesus is talking about. It's not the gap between what we say and what we do. It's the gap between what we do and what we love. That's what Jesus is getting at. The other thing I want to point out here is three times Jesus says when you, when you give to the needy, when you pray, when you fast. He's not saying if but when, meaning this is expected. This is expected of the Jews at the time, that was basic Judaic piety. It's actually Muslim piety, five of the pillars, these three are three of the five, including the other two are visiting Mecca, pilgrimage to Mecca and reciting the creed. So people of all religions, people of all religions and nations and creeds, we know that it's good to be generous, it's good to help the needy, and it's good to pray and it's good to fast. The assumption is we do these things. We know these things are good. And most people want to be generous and want to be known for giving. Most people pray. Very few people I've ever met who say, "I have never prayed." Even as an unbeliever, there are those situations that you get into when you're vulnerable, when you feel weak, when you feel helpless, that the natural cry of your heart, something just inside calls out to the supernatural, we can't but pray. And this is our heart's witness to the existence of God. And many people even today fast. Fasting has been a fad as of late. People talk about intermittent fasting, extended fasting, fasting from social media, fasting from entertainment, fasting from alcohol, sober October. So these things are part and parcel of our lives. So Jesus says when, we do these things, there's a way to do it that's right. And there's a way to do it to feed your ego. And Jesus said, when you do it for the approval of people, you have received your award, you get what you're after, but that's all you get. He's saying there's two rewards. There's rewards that you get from people and there's a reward that you get from God, approval from people and delight of God. So this brings us to the second point, authentic mercy, prayer and fasting. Authentic giving or mercy in verse three says, "When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. So that your giving maybe in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." One of the things that comes to mind immediately is if you've been attentively reading the Sermon on the Mount, you'll all automatically you ask, "Well, how do I reconcile this with what it says in Matthew 5:14 through 16, where Jesus says, 'You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a mat, a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.'"? So on the one hand, Jesus is saying you need to do good work so people see them so they glorify God. On the other hand, he's saying there are things that you need to do so people do not see, so they do not glorify you, but they glorify God. So what's he saying? A.B. Bruce puts it like this, "We are to show when tempted to hide and hide when tempted to show." Jesus has a separation between our good works and our personal piety, our personal devotion to God. Our good works, that can't but be public. Our spiritual disciplines must be in secret and the end goal is the glory of God. Why giving and prayer and fasting in secret? Because that right there is something that glorifies God when no one else sees it. What about our good words? Well, when people see the good works, they glorify God. So the end goal is the glory of God. Our good works have to be visible, but never for the sake of making it visible. The phrase, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, it's an overwhelming metaphor. If you help someone with your right hand, your left hand, in some sense, doesn't know what it's doing. It's not just about not telling others. It's almost like not telling yourself. If you give to someone, and then you don't even think about it. You don't glow over the fact that you help this person, there's a state of unself consciousness, like you don't give with the hand and not with the heart. And Jesus is saying, be careful, because your heart is so porous, that you turn mercy into vanity. So there is a sense in which we set up how much we can give in our generosity and you can budget this out. But there's also a sense where you don't count it. You don't count how much you've given to others in the name of Jesus Christ. There's a sense where that number is never in your mind because you understand that that wasn't even yours to begin with. Matthew 6:6, And when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father, who is in secret." Is Jesus denouncing public prayer? No, of course not. What he is saying, he is denouncing public prayer when you don't have private prayer. When the only time you pray publicly, when you pray is publicly. In secret before God one on one, that's the essence of prayer. Psalm 27, seven through nine, "Hear o Lord, when I cry aloud. Be gracious to me, answer me. You have said, 'Seek my face.' My heart says to you, 'Your face, Lord, do I seek. Hide not your face from me.'" So there is to be a place for private prayer in your life, where on a daily basis, you have a place you go to in secret, and he talks about closing a door. So it's a space that you devote to. It's almost like an altar on a daily basis. Lord, this is the place I'm going to meet with you. And when you pray, he says in verse seven, "When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need, before you ask Him." He says don't just repeat over and over and over simple prayer. In different Christian traditions in the Russian Orthodox tradition and many Catholic traditions, it's all about repetition. It's all about what you say, how many times you say it. This is how you show God your devotion. And Jesus says no, no, no. It's a conversation. It's a relationship with God the Father. You talk to me, you bare your heart before me. You can't strong arm God into doing what you want by sheer volume. Sheer volume of words isn't a critical factor. Jesus, sometimes he pray with brevity, we just pray quick little prayer. Sometimes he'd spent a whole night in prayer. So it's not about that. It's just about not thinking that we can force God without repetition. Ecclesiastes 5:2, "Do not be rash with your mouth nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on Earth. Therefore, let your words be few." So the volume of words isn't important but the sustained prayer is important. So Luke 18, Jesus gives a parable of a widow that goes to a judge and she's begging for justice, begging for justice, and the judge only because of her impudence, her sustained coming to him, he gives to her. So when we long for something, when it's on our heart to ask God for something, we are to ask and ask and ask, the emphasis on the sustained coming to God, not necessarily on the repetition. And that's Luke 18:1, "He told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray not lose heart." So how are we to pray? How are we to have a private prayer life? Jesus gives us not the prayer that we should pray, but the template by which we should pray. That's why he says in verse nine, "Pray then like this.", not specifically pray this. And a lot of traditions have really misunderstood this text. They think if I just pray this over and over and over on a daily basis, multiple times a day, God's going to do what God wants, what he wants me to do, that's not what's going on. He says, this is the template and the template goes like this, our Father in heaven. And I just want you to see the emphasis on the second person plural, first person, the second person, plural is you together, our Father, he's not saying my Father, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day. So before we get to our needs, what are we focusing on? God. We're focusing on God, Jesus Christ, but tell me this, why did Jesus Christ pray as often as he did? He's God incarnate. He can give himself anything. He can create miracles and meet all of his needs. Why did Jesus Christ pray? What did Jesus Jesus Christ get from prayer that he couldn't give himself? You know what he got? He got time with God the Father. That's why we pray. And this is what fights the hypocrisy in the inside, where you get on your knees before God, you said, "God, you know all things, you know all of my struggles, you know all of my needs. And before I talk about my needs, I need to focus my attention on you. You are my father, you are our father, the community's father, hallowed be your name. May your name be holy, may your transcendent name be holy." And you're also personal because your father, may your kingdom come. Not my kingdom, but your kingdom. May your will be done. Before I talk about my needs, I'm going to talk about your will being done on earth as it is in heaven. And then we get to our needs. Give us this day our daily bread. You're not just praying for your own needs. It's God, everyone in the community of faith. Give us this day our daily bread, not give me bread for tomorrow or next week or for a month, just today. Give us this bread for the day. And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. There's this connection between forgive us because we've forgiven and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Lord, I can't overcome temptation on my own, I can't overcome temptation from evil, help me. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespass. This text could be misread, to say the only way that you can have your sins forgiven is to make sure that you have forgiven everybody, as if forgiving others is the price of being heard. And I've been in churches where that's what's been preached. But that doesn't fit in the context of the sermon of the Mount. That doesn't fit in the context of the gospel of Matthew, or the context of all of Scripture. He's not saying you have to do this for God, for God to do something for you. He's saying, asking for forgiveness for yourself, while not forgiving those who have sinned against you, is the pinnacle of hypocrisy. So if you ask for forgiveness, just know God's expecting that you forgive those who have sinned against you. And he brings us in in the prayer life because he understands that if we don't deal with other people's sin against us, that that is going to absolutely destroy us from the inside. And then he gets to fasting, true, authentic fasting, Matthew 6:17 through 18. When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in heaven. Jesus assumes that his disciples will fast, that this will be a regular cadence of our spiritual walk. The Pharisees fasted, we know from Luke 18:12, twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays. Most likely it was sun up to sundown, that was their fast, so most likely skipping two meals, like a 20 hour, 24 hour fast, and the Pharisees fast. When they fasted, they had glum expression, they looked miserable, they went unwashed, unkempt, they would even sprinkle ashes on themselves to be seen by others. And by the way, if you know someone that fasts on a regular basis and does extended fasting, it's kind of impressive. Wow, you have control over it, you can skip a meal, you can skip two meals, you can do a full day without food. That's really impressive stuff. And the Pharisees would use this to build up social capital in the community where they would let people know so today, it would be like posting on social media. There's all kinds of fasting apps that shows how to start and stop and you can put all your measurements in there and people share on social media, "Oh, I just finished a five day fast." And everyone gives them kudos. That's basically what the Pharisees were doing. And they had received their reward. But that doesn't mean, because they were doing it wrong. Jesus does not say therefore never fast. He still expects that his disciples fast on a regular basis. John the baptizer fasted regularly even often. And the disciples of Jesus did not, while Jesus was there, but it was expected when he left, Matthew 9"14 through 15. "Then the disciples of John came to him saying, why do we and the Pharisees fast but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them, can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast." Jesus does expect that his followers fast and fast on a regular basis. Jesus started his ministry by fasting for 40 days and 40 nights. He did that supernatural by the power of the Holy Spirit. But there is an expectation for us to fast and Jesus fasted for 40 days. So it's a struggle, even with the idea of fasting for 40 hours. Jesus is expecting this as part of our life. First of all, you do need to meet with your medical professionals, your doctors to see how and if. And it's not just with food, what is fasting? Strictly speaking, it's a total abstention of food, but it can be legitimately extended to other things. And what's the point? The point of it is the nice self, humbled before God, and where we pursue God in that state of humility. Psalm 35:13, "But I, when they were sick, I wore sackcloth, I afflicted myself with fasting. I prayed with head bowed on my chest." Sometimes in Scripture, fasting is connected with repentance, where you are repentant over sin and you are humbling yourself with God and you bring in fasting to deepen that humility. Nehemiah did that with all of the people. He gathered all the people and with fasting and sackcloth, they stood and confessed their sins. When Jonah goes to preach in Nineveh, they repented Jonah's preaching and they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth. Daniel sought God by prayer and supplication, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes and prayed to the Lord is God and made confession for the sins of people. Remember Paul, when Paul meets Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, for three days and three nights, he doesn't eat because he is in such repentance over the fact that he pursued Christians and killed Christians, persecuted Christians. Sometimes fasting is used to ask the Lord for future mercy, or blessing or guidance. God in this season, I don't know what to do. Where are you leading me? Where are you guiding me? And we see that Moses fasted on Mount Sinai immediately after the covenant was renewed. We see Queen Esther, before she took her life into her hands to go before the king, she asked Mordecai and the people that Mordecai knew, the people of God too fast on behalf of her. Ezra proclaimed a fast before leading the exiles back to Jerusalem, but he says that we may humble ourselves before our God and seek from him a straightway. So if you're in a season where you are pursuing God's direction, fasting is always recommended with prayer. In the early church, the church of Antioch before Paul and Barnabas were sent out, they fasted. Paul and Barnabas before appointing elders in every church, they prayed and fasted. And fasting is also used for self discipline, because saying no to eating one appetite gives you power to say no to other appetites. I've noticed this in my own life and perhaps you have as well. When I have self discipline in one area of life, it translates to self discipline in other areas of life. When self discipline increases here, it increases everywhere else. I Corinthians 9:24 to 27, "Do you not know that in a race, all the runners run but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified." So practically speaking how to incorporate fasting in your life, if you've never done it, you got to do, you got to ease into it. Perhaps push back a meal in the morning, push back breakfast, ease into it or or cut out a certain category of foods, et cetera. I can give you all the practicalities of it. I went through a season where I wanted to learn everything I could on fasting. I read every single book on fasting that I could find. I think it was over like 100 books that I read through. The way I read is I go in, I find out the 40 pages that got the book published and I'm done. I'm out. Next book. And that's the way you should read as well. And so I know at this part of the sermon, I'm like I can get into the way I fast. But Jesus said this part of your life have to be secret. So I'm not going to. We can talk about that in secret. And then when you say that, then that brings attention to yourself. So I still struggle with this part. But yeah, in secret, I'm not going to tell you everything because I want my reward in heaven, not from you. Thank you very much. Point three, motivation for authenticity. Where do we get the motivation? We have to figure out what's the motivation for authenticity. We have to figure out what is the motivation for hypocrisy. If you can isolate the cause, then we can easily find the remedy Why is the hypocrite? What's the hypocrite motivated by? What is the hypocrite obsessed with? Acceptance from people. And if you get acceptance from people, that's not really what you're going for. What you are really obsessed about isn't just the acceptance of people as much as how that feels inside for yourself. So really, you're not motivated by pleasing other people as much as pleasing self. So if you're motivated by pleasing self, and that's why you pray, that's why you give, that's why you fast, that's what leads to hypocrisy. Because getting pleasure from people is much easier than getting delight of God, much easier. Because all you got to do is fake it. So it comes down to what you love most. Do you love most self or God? Ultimately, the only reason that people please others is to find pleasure for self. Why? Because we're insecure. We're self conscious. We need someone else to tell us that we are good, because we know deep inside we are not. We need someone else to tell us that we are righteous because we know deep inside we are not righteous, that there are sins that we cannot expose. So what's the remedy? The remedy is to find your security in God, find your remedy in God, find your acceptance and approval in God. Be secure in the fact that you're loved by God the Father. How can I be sure that I'm loved by God the Father? Look at what God the Father gave for you. It starts with giving to the needy. Well, God gave to the needy us. He gave his beloved Son. Why would God give his beloved son for God so loved the world, that he gave his beloved Son, for whosoever believes in Him should not die but have eternal life. God gave his greatest treasure for us, because he knew that we were good, because he saw that we are righteous. No. Jesus Christ came and died for sinners. And Jesus Christ on the cross, died for every single one of your sins past, present, and future. Therefore, it doesn't even make sense for us to hide our sin from God. Because as a Christian, your sins have been paid for on the cross, absolutely exposed by God, the Father on the cross, as Jesus Christ is bearing God's wrath for those sins. So there's absolutely no need to hide. And we know that when we come to Him, we repent of the sins, not pretending to be righteous, he forgives us of all of our sin, and gives us the power to live a transformed life. And this is where the transformation happens. When you understand how much God has loved you, then your heart begins to grow in love for God. And that's where the true essence modification happens, not just behavior modification, Matthew 6:4 through 5, "So that your giving may be in secret and your Father who is in secret will reward you and when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love." That right there, that's the heart of the hypocrisy. And when you understand what the heart of hypocrisy is, then you begin to understand what the heart of authenticity can be. "For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they've received their award." They love getting attention from people, because they loved the pleasure it brought to self. Matthew 23:5 through 7, "And they do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and fringes long. And they love the places of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplace and being called Rabbi by others." They loved it. So we struggle with hypocrisy. This is why we all struggle with this. Because we all struggle with self love. We all struggle with pride. And this is what sin is. Sin is loving anything more than God. So how do we fight the hypocrisy? You fight the hypocrisy with love of God, and you grow in love of God by growing and understanding how much God loves you. And the other way that you practically grow in the self discipline, the spiritual disciplines, of giving, of prayer and of fasting is the phrase that we see in all three of these sections. Verse four, "So that your giving maybe in secret and your Father who sees." That's Matthew 6:4, "And your Father who sees." Matthew 6:6, same thing. "And your Father who sees in secret will reward you." And then verse 18, "Your Father who sees in secret will reward you." Every single child, every single child deep inside, what do they long for? They long for the undivided attention of their father, of their parents. "Daddy, look at me, look at me, look what I can do." And I remember as a kid I was meditating on this this week. When I played sports, my dad never came to any of my events because I played baseball and he's like baseball stupid. He's a Russian Soviet guy. He's like, "I don't know baseball. It's not even sport." That's the only reason I was tremendous is baseball. That's why they called me the crushing Russian. And I remember the only reason I wrestled, and wrestling is just a dumb sport, I never really enjoyed it. My dad thought it was this manly sport. That's the only reason I did it. And my greatest performance is when my dad would show up and just watch. And there's something about making sacrifices for the delight of your father, and just his undivided attention is reward enough, how much more so when our Heavenly Father, he sees our sacrifices that no one sees. He sees our sacrifices of giving to others, of taking from self and giving to, God the Father sees it, and there is a reward. What is the reward? We're not told. What's the reward for prayer? We're not told. What's the reward for fasting? We're not told, well, I think God seeing is reward enough. God sees and He draws you closer to Himself. Why did Jesus pray? Because he got more of the Father. Why did Jesus give? Because he got the delight of the Father, "This is my Son, in whom I'm well pleased." Why did Jesus fast to get the delight of the Father? Jesus prayed, gave fast for an audience of one. How can we give? We can give because Jesus Christ, he who was rich became poor so that we might become rich in him. How do we know that our prayers are heard because Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, prayed a prayer that was rejected. :et this cup pass from me, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Christ says on the cross, his prayer was rejected. He was rejected from the presence of God as He bore the sins, our sins upon himself so that our prayers can be heard. How can I fast? Because I have a treasure greater than food, I have the bread of life. And the Pharisees focused on the letter of the law, which only led to outside righteousness. Jesus focused on the heart of the law, which can only be met from the heart. And this is where we need Jesus Christ. We need Jesus Christ to give us a brand new heart. A lot of people today justify their sin by saying, "I was born this way." Jesus Christ comes and he says, "Yeah, everyone needs to be born again. We're all sinners, we all need a heart transplant. We all need our heart of stone taken out and replaced with the heart of flesh. And that's done by humbling yourself before Jesus Christ, coming to him and saying, "Jesus, I am a hypocrite. Jesus, I'm not righteous. Jesus, I'm not perfect. Jesus, forgive me of my sins, and give me the power of the Holy Spirit to live the life that you have called me to live." I'll close with Psalm 139:1 through 2, and then 7 through 12, one of my favorite Psalms, in which the psalmist talks about and meditates on the fact that God is everywhere, and the God sees, and that should be motivation enough for us to repent of sin, and then grow in authentic following of him. Psalm 139:1 through 2, "Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up, and you discern my thoughts from afar. Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you. And the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you." Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for the reminder that there's nowhere we can go where you are not. Your presence is always before us. And I pray that that motivates us to turn from sin and turn to you, and on a daily basis to pursue perfection as you were perfect and not do it in a way where we pretend we're better than we are. But to do it in a way where we repent when we fall short of the standard of perfection, and then get up and continue following you. We thank you for the gospel of Jesus Christ. We thank you that you forgive us of all of our sins, when we turn from sin and turn to Christ, and continue to make us people that do pursue the spiritual distance of giving makes us generous people, pursue time of prayer with you, because there's nothing more rewarding than spending time with God the Father, and to fast from things that pull us away from you, and to discipline ourselves so that our flesh doesn't take over, and that we continue to walk by the power of the Holy Spirit. And we thank you and we pray all this in Christ's holy name. Amen.
Sermon on the Mount Week 5
February 21, 2021 • Shane Sikkema • Matthew 5:33–48
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning. Welcome again to Mosaic. If you're new, welcome. My name is Shane. I'm one of the pastors here at Mosaic and we're so glad to have you worshiping with us today. We would love to connect with you while you're here. The way we do that is through the connection card. Hopefully you grabbed one of those on the way in. If you did, you can fill that out with us and give us some information about yourself. On the back, there, you can also check off to receive more information from us, or if you're watching at home online, you can also fill that out on our website, but if you do, we'd love to just follow up with you this week. Send you some information about Mosaic and also just send a small gift to you in the mail, to thank you for being with us today. And if you are just joining us, we are currently going through a sermon series on Matthew 5 through 7. This is the sermon on the mount. Maybe you didn't know this, but the reason that this is called the sermon on the mount is actually because, for three chapters, Jesus preaches a sermon on a mountain, and as he does, he's painting a picture of what his kingdom looks like. And what it looks like when his kingdom breaks into our world, into our lives, and into our hearts, and it's radically different from everything we're used to. Everything that his disciples were used to. He's preaching, he's teaching ideas that are going to change the world forever. And speaking of changing the world, Elon Musk has been in the news a lot lately. Not at all trying to compare him to Jesus, but when you think of that person, you think of his name, what comes to mind? When you hear the name Elon Musk, maybe you think brilliant genius. Maybe you think mad scientist. Maybe you think richest man on Earth. Maybe it makes you think of Bitcoin, or the doge. He's got so many things going on, right? He's building rockets, he's colonizing Mars, he's hard wiring monkey brains. Among all of these things that he's doing, it's easy to forget about his work with Tesla, but one of the things that he's been working hard on is trying to crack this code of driverless, autonomous vehicles. And I imagine one of the most difficult things about this is, with drivers of vehicles, you're trying to replicate human intuition in a robot, in a machine. And what that means is that the vehicles, they need to know how to adapt, how to react, and how to make split-second value based decisions in a variety of contexts and in a variety of different conditions and circumstances. You can't just download the driver's ed textbook, and then turn the key, and you're good to go. Even if you could program the car to follow the traffic laws completely, with perfection, 100% of the time, the first time they met a Boston driver, they would get wrecked. We know this. One of the things that we're going to notice as we go through, and that we have noticed as we go through the sermon on the mount, is that Jesus is repeatedly challenging this kind of robotic, rigid, rote spirituality of the rabbis, of the Pharisees, of the teachers of the law, because they have created this religious system that looked good maybe on paper, it looked good on the outside, but it was ironically and tragically keeping them very far from God on the inside. They developed kind of an almost textbook relationship with God, a strict adherence to the letter of the law, which, on top of that, they had kind of started adding their own traditions, their own rules, and yet none of it was enough. Something still wasn't right because in real life they were still getting wrecked. When it came to the actual purpose of the law, and the spirit of the law, they were a danger to themselves, and they were a danger to everyone else around them, and so Jesus is very critical of these teachers, of these Pharisees. We see this over and over, and in Matthew 15, Jesus was speaking of the Pharisees when he said this, Matthew 15:8, "That this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men." A few chapters later in Matthew 23, again, he says, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees. Hypocrites, for you tithe mint, and deal in cumin, and have neglected the way to your matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faithfulness." He says, "These that you ought to have done. It's good that you're obeying the law. You ought to do that. You ought to tithe, without neglecting the others," he said. You blind guys, straining out a gnat, and swallowing a camel. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisees. First clean the inside of the cup and the plate that the outside may also be clean." He says, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanliness, so you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you're full of hypocrisy," and Jesus actually says, "lawlessness." Jesus had so many run-ins with the Pharisees that today, when we hear that word Pharisees, we immediately think, "Bad guy, yeah. Those are the bad guys." But we need to understand that in the first century, this was not the case. People loved the Pharisees, people looked up to them. They respected them. They were kind of the hope for our people, for our society, for our civilization. They were the pinnacle of righteousness and morality. If they were alive today, they would have a blue check next to their name. Right? They would be the ones who could tweet storm with the best of them, they could virtue signal with the perfectly timed clap emojis, and they were the epitome of what it meant to live on the right side of history in the eyes of the people. But in the eyes of Jesus, he saw right through their self-righteous hypocrisy, and in calling them out, he really shows us just how deep our problem of sin really goes, because we are in the wrong, we sin when we do wrong. We also sin when we do what's right, when we try to do what's right, when we aim for what's right and we think we're doing what's right, we have this sinful tendency to get proud, to get arrogant, to get smug, and self-righteous, and we put these good deeds on like a mask. We wear our righteousness like a cloak and we parade around, and all the while we're concealing the darkness that is still there lurking beneath the surface. And so what does God think of these disguises that we wear? Isaiah 64:4 tells us that all our righteous deeds, they're like filthy garments. They're disgusting. They're repulsive. The reason that Jesus is so stern with people who trust in their righteousness, who think that they're good, with self-righteous people, is because self-righteous people are self-deceived people. He needed to shake them to wake them up and to understand that the law is good, the law is very good, but knowing it is not enough. Our feeble attempts at keeping it is not enough. Cleaning up the outside is not enough. And impressing the people around us is not enough. Our biggest problem is not with the way things look on the outside, our biggest problem is the way that things actually are deep on the inside, and the good news is that this is why Jesus had come. Jesus had come to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 36:26, and he says, "I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." The things that Jesus calls us to do in our passage today are some of the hardest things that we will ever have to do. Actually, by the end of the passage, what he calls us to is he calls us to perfection. He says, "You must be perfect." That is the standard that he sets. If we don't understand this simple truth, we can misunderstand the entire sermon on the mount, because Jesus calls us to perfection. Not in order that we might become children of God, we can't earn our way into his kingdom. That's not how it works. He calls us to perfection because in him, children of God is who we already are. He gives us a new heart, a new spirit, a new identity, and then he calls us to just a totally new way of living life, of doing life, in his kingdom, and so as we start we need to understand what Jesus is calling us to do today is impossible, and yet at the same time with God, all things are possible. We need his grace, we need his spirit to live this out, and so before we go and really jump into the rest of the sermon today, let's just take some time to go to God together and pray. Father, what we are about to read seems so far beyond our reach, and we know, however, that you are with us, and so we ask, Lord, we pray, that you would give us grace, that you would give us power, that you would fill us with your spirit to be the salt and the light that you have called us to be, and to press on toward this standard that you're calling us today. And Lord, we thank you for these words of Christ, we thank you for your word. Your word is holy, it is inerrant, it is infallible, it is authoritative for our lives. We pray that you would write these words, these truths, upon our heart today, so that we can live them for your glory, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. All right, we're actually going to be looking at three small passages today, and with that we're going to be looking at three points in the sermon today, so what we're going to see is that citizens of Jesus' kingdom are called to humble integrity. This is Matthew 5:33 through 37. Are called to merciful justice. This is verses 38 through 42, and then finally, they're called to prayerful peacemaking. This is 43 through 48, so point number one, citizens of Jesus' kingdom are called to humble integrity. Matthew 5:33, Jesus says this, he says, "Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. But I say to you, do not take an oath at all. Either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the Earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. Do not take an oath by your head, for you can not make one hair white or black, that what you say simply be yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil." As we've seen over the last few weeks, when Jesus says you have heard that it was said, he's not quoting or critiquing the written word. He is referring to the oral traditions of the rabbis, of the Pharisees, of the teachers of the law who had attempted to interpret the written word, and so this comes from multiple passages in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 23, Leviticus 19, Numbers 30, Exodus 20, even the wisdom literature of Ecclesiastes 5, and so what is Jesus critiquing here? Again, he's not critiquing the scripture. He's critiquing these traditions that had kind of started to distort God's word and the intention of his law. In the first century, making these kinds of vows, these kinds of oaths, was very common. People would swear on all kinds of things, and it got to the point where the rabbis had started to distinguish between which oaths were binding and which oaths were not, and so the idea was the greater or the more holy the object that you swore by, the greater the obligation you had to keep that vow, and obviously this is wrong. There's two really big problems with this that I want us to look at. First of all, this is a problem because it's hypocritical. It lacks integrity. Jesus, in Matthew 23, was critiquing this again, and he said, verse 16, "Woe to you blind guides who say if anyone swears by the temple it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple he is bound by his oath. You blind fools. Which is greater, the gold, or the temple that has made the gold sacred?" It's like, on the one hand, it really doesn't matter what you swear by. Everything belongs to the Lord. The heaven is his throne. The whole Earth is his footstool. But worse than that is this mindset, it carries with it this idea that some oaths are binding, which implies that some oaths are not, and so it's taking this teaching about vows, and it's using it to justify dishonesty. It's using it to justify breaking the command, "Thou shalt not bear false witness." And Jesus says this comes from evil. Words matter. Words are powerful. Words are revealing. Our words are powerful, we know this. They can do great good. They can also cause great harm. But our words are also revealing. A person's words reveal a lot about a person's heart, and so if our words can't be trusted, we can't be trusted. If our words are misleading, then our persona is misleading. In other words, who we are on the outside, is not the same as who we are on the inside. We lack integrity. We are by definition a hypocrite. Our outer self and our inner self, they're not integrated, and so we know this. We know that lying is wrong, and so if this is the case, why do people do it? Why is it a temptation for people to be dishonest, to be deceptive? And I would say most of the time, people lie in order to present a false reality that is going to somehow benefit them in a way more than true reality, and so people will lie to manipulate others for the sake of gaining comfort, for gaining security, gaining respect, gaining control, and this is why Jesus calls this evil, and as citizens of his kingdom, we have no reason to be doing this. Right? Why would we need to concoct a false reality if we are already living in the reality of grace? If we're already living in the reality that God already knows the real us, inside and out, he knows the darkness that is inside, and yet he still loves us. He still accepts us. He came to save us from that darkness inside, and so as Christians we don't need to lie to cover up the darkness. We need to take the darkness of our hearts out into the light of God's grace where we can deal with it and put it to death. This is part of being salt and light in the world, and he's being salt and light to yourself. Preaching the gospel to the darkness of your own heart. Jesus is calling on us to be people of integrity, men and women of our word, people who really don't need to swear an oath, to make a vow, because our reputation is our guarantee. Our word is our bond that what we say is what we do. We are reliable, trustworthy, faithful people. That's what he's talking about here. And so the practical question, then, does this mean that Christians can never make vows? Is that what Jesus is talking about? Is he saying that you should never sign a business contract or you should never come under oath in a court of law, or make vows at a wedding ceremony? That's not what Jesus is saying. Jesus was put under oath during his trial before the high priest. We see examples of vows being made in the books of Acts and 1st Thessalonians. That's not the point. What Jesus is trying to hammer home is this idea of integrity matters. That actually this is a key aspect of his kingdom's culture, and so as citizens of that kingdom, we need to be marked by honesty, by integrity, by faithfulness, as well. So Jesus corrects that lack of integrity. The second problem is this is also, this interpretation, it's prideful and it lacks humility. Jesus says, "Don't take an oath at all," verse 34, "either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the Earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king, and do not take an oath for your head for you cannot make one hair white or black." In other words, who are you to swear by anything? Nothing is yours. Everything belongs to the Lord, and even the hairs on your head are outside of your control. We can't control the future. We can't control the passage of time. Therefore, be careful. Don't boast about your plans or make promises that you can't keep. James, the brother of Jesus, talks about this in James chapter 4. He says, "Come now, you who say today or tomorrow. We will go into such and such a town, and spend a year there, and trade, and make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time, and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil." And so we need to be humble, we need to be honest about our limitations. This doesn't mean we don't make plans, it doesn't mean we don't set goals, but we submit those to the sovereignty of God, and we understand that in Jesus' culture, Jesus' kingdom is marked by a culture of humble integrity. Point two, secondly, citizens of Jesus' kingdom are called to merciful justice. This is verse 38 through 42. Jesus says this again to his disciples, he says, "You have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also, and if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well, and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you." Those of you who know me know I grew up in a small town, and most of my friends that I grew up with, most of us all went to the same school. Most of us all went to the same church. And it was right there in our neighborhood, and we spent a lot of time playing there. We'd ride our bikes in the parking lot. We'd play roller hockey. There was a yard that we played soccer, football at times, and I remember when I was in like 9th grade, we were in the churchyard playing tackle football. Right at that age where we were probably too old to be playing football without pads, and yet we were too proud and too tough to admit that, and so things got kind of crazy, and it would get kind of rough sometimes, and I remember we were there, and I tackled one of my friends, and I don't know if it was just a rush of adrenaline or what came over him, but as we get up, he's visibly angry, and the next thing I know he winds up, and he just punches me right in the face. It was one of those moments you're like, "Did that just happen?" And I look at him again, and I realize he's winding up to punch me again. It's one of those moments where time just kind of slows down, and so right there in the churchyard I had to kind of take a deep breath, and calm myself down, and I just kind of mustered up every bit of strength that I had, and then I punched him in the stomach as hard as I possibly could, and knocked the wind out of him, and he went down, and the fight was over. Was that the right thing to do? First of all, in my defense, as the wise sage Mike Tyson once said, "Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face." You never know what you're going to do in a situation like that. Also, we were teenage boys, which meant by the end of the game we were friends again. It was not a big deal. But is Jesus saying that it is never permissible for a Christian to defend themselves? Is he saying that Christians need to be total pacifists, doormats to injustice? That we should never take a stand against evil or come to the defense of the innocent? Should I have just let my friend keep wailing on my until he got that all out of his system? When I first became a Christian, I thought that's what Jesus was talking about here. Now, I don't think that anymore, but before we kind of get to what Jesus is saying, I think it might be kind of helpful to clear up what he's not saying, because if Jesus is commanding absolute pacifism, if he's prohibiting a self-defense in every situation, that poses a couple of problems, and first of all one of the problems that it poses, is this would appear to contradict other passages of scripture, and even other examples from Jesus' own life, and so did Jesus ever use force to accomplish a goal? He did. On at least one, possibly two occasions, Jesus went to the temple, and he said, "I'm here to flip tables and whip fools, and I'm all out of tables." And he made a whip, and he started chasing people out of the temple. This was premeditated use of force, but it was not sinful. Now, some will argue, "Yeah, but Jesus is God and his judgment is perfect, and it is his temple, and so that doesn't apply to us." And I would say, "Yeah, that's actually a fair argument." But there are other scriptures that we would need to consider as well. To be a consistent pacifist would require us to apply that not only to individuals, but to police, to governments, to militaries, and that would be a very clear contradiction of scripture. This is made clear for us in Romans 13. When Paul says, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God, therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment, for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who was in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer." This doesn't mean that governments are always doing God's will, that they never abuse their power. We see in Revelation and other places that they often do, but in general this is true, that God is a God of justice, and he has ordained that human governments have the authority to bear the sword as a means to punish evil, as a means to uphold and carry out his justice in a fallen world. And so Christians can serve in the military, and can be police officers, and things like that, but what about individuals? Are we as citizens of heaven permitted to exercise our rights as citizens of Earthly kingdoms in order to defend ourselves or defend the innocent around us? Again, I think scripture shows us that we are. In Acts 22, the Apostle Paul appeals to his Roman citizenship in order to defend himself against the infringement upon his rights by the local authorities. Acts 22:25 says that when they had stretched him out for the whips, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, "Is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a Roman citizen and un-condemned?" And when the centurion heard this, he went to tribune and said to him, "What are you about to do? This man is a Roman citizen." So the tribune came and said to me, "Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?" And he said yes. And the tribune answered, "I bought my citizenship for a large sum." And Paul said, "You know, I'm a citizen by birth." And then they all freak out because they realize that they had been breaking the law by doing this to Paul as a Roman citizen, and so it is at times okay to exercise our rights as the citizens of Earthly governments, but in Luke 22 we also see Jesus tells his disciples that there may be situations, there are times, that they needed to be prepared to defend themselves in certain situations. Luke 22:35 says that he said to them, "When I sent you out with no moneybag or nap sack or sandals, did you lack anything?" And they said, "Nothing." And he said to them, "But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a nap sack, and let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one, for I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me," and he was numbered with the transgressors, "for what is written about me has its fulfillment." And they said, "Look, lord, here are two swords." And he said to them, "It is enough." And so what's going on here? Clearly, Jesus isn't trying to plan some kind of armed revolt. They only had two swords and Jesus said, "Yeah, that's going to be plenty. That's enough." But you still have to ask, what were Jesus and his disciples doing carrying swords around to begin with? Because a sword is not used for daily tasks. This isn't something that they needed to cook, or to clean, or anything like that. The only reason that Jesus' disciples would've been carrying swords around as they traveled was for self-defense. And so we need to be careful here, because later Peter pulls out his sword in the garden and attacks one of the guards who had come to arrest Jesus, and Jesus tells him, "Put it away. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword." That was not its purpose, but it does seem there is reason to believe that reasonable self-defense is permissible at times, while at the same time we understand that Jesus' kingdom is not advanced by the sword at any time. John 18, Jesus, standing before Pilate, told him, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from the world." And so on the one hand, we see self-defense, permissible in certain situations, with the right motivation, yet at the same time as Christians we don't live by the sword. The kingdom is not advanced by the sword. As followers of Jesus, our proclivity is love. Our prerogative is mercy. Our first inclination is to show meekness, and if it feels like maybe that's a little ambiguous or unclear, I think it's because it is. This is part of do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. You need to trust in the spirit to show you, to tell you, to know what's right to do in one situation which might be different from another situation, and there's a tension here that we need to live in between justice and mercy. We don't want to be vengeful, we don't want to be wrathful, but we don't want to be the crazy saint that Martin Luther talked about who let the lice nibble on him, and refused to kill any of them, on account of this text maintaining that he had to suffer and could not resist evil. That's taking it to the point of folly. If you see evil, if you see injustice happening, and it is within your means to stop it, then you should aim to do so, but you should aim to do so by the means that God has ordained under his authority, and so oftentimes this is going to mean involving the authorities, calling the police, but there are also going to be times where you are the highest authority, and perhaps the spirit will lead you to employ the use of force to defend yourself or to defend an innocent person in a reasonable manner. John Stott put it like this, "If my house is burgled one night and I catch the thief, I employ force to knock him out, tie him up, whatever, it may well be my duty to sit him down and give him something to eat and drink while at the same time telephoning the police." That's the tension that we want to embrace of wanting to uphold justice, but also wanting to show as much mercy as we can. I mentioned there that there was two problems with this kind of pacifist interpretation. The first is it seems to contradict other scriptures, it seems to contradict Jesus' example. The second is that this interpretation, I think it misunderstands Jesus' use of rhetoric in this passage, and it therefore misunderstands his meaning, what he's actually teaching us here. When we get bogged down with these technicalities, it is easy to miss the forest from the trees. Jesus isn't primarily trying to teach us, "This is how you need to react if you see somebody being mugged or if an intruder breaks into your home." He's actually calling us to do something that is far more common, far more practical, far more relatable, and so therefore it's also arguably far more difficult as well. Like the rest of the sermon, Jesus is illustrating his points as he goes with a rhetorical device known as hyperbole. It's where you use an extreme, almost ridiculous example in order to grab your audience's attention so that they listen to what you say, and really think deeply about what you're communicating. And so throughout the sermon on the mount, Jesus says these crazy things. He says you need to pluck out your eye, you need to cut off your hand, don't ever let anyone see you praying. You need to pray in your closet with the door closed, or when you give, don't even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. If we take these things literally, we miss the point of what Jesus is talking about, and these things don't actually solve the problem that Jesus is talking about, either, but when you understand what Jesus is saying you know what he means, right? We need to take what he's saying seriously, we need to check out hearts and give thought to what he is saying, because it's important, and so when we look at this text and Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, when he tells us to go the extra mile, the point is not to start arguing about, "How do we rigidly apply this to extreme hypothetically situations that we're likely never going to face?" The point is you know what he means, and in real everyday life, when someone insults you, when someone takes advantage of you, when you feel that you have been used, or slighted, or wronged, or made to look the fool, do not retaliate. Don't throw more fuel on the fire. React, and as much as you can, react mercifully. React in a way so that as much as it depends on you, you're able to respond in a way that deescalates that situation, that puts out that fire in order to leave room for redemption, to leave room for reconciliation and to make peace. In our flesh, this is not what we want to hear. This is not what we want to do. Our normal, sinful response is to get angry, say, "That's not fair." To lash out, to try to even the score, retaliate, get our revenge. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But this is not how things work in Jesus' kingdom. Paul in Romans 12:17 through 21, he tells us this, he says, "Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' says the Lord." "To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." And so when a friend betrays you, when a peer insults you, when a coworker throws you under the bus, when you feel like your boss is taking advantage of you, when your neighbors are being just totally inconsiderate, when someone's wronged you, when you feel like slandering them, when you feel like flaming them on Facebook, and canceling them on Twitter, and just totally executing them socially, you need to remember who you are. You are a sinner, and you are a sinner who's been saved by grace. You are a sinner who has been saved by grace and called to be salt and light in a dark and twisted world, that we as followers of Jesus, we're called to be radically and sacrificially generous with the mercy that we extend to others because God has been radically and sacrificially generous with the mercy that he has extended to us. Citizens of Jesus' kingdom are called to humble integrity, called to merciful justice. Finally, they're called to prayerful peacemaking. This is verse 43 through 48. Jesus again said, "You have heard that it was 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 so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sins rain on the just and on the unjust." "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect." The bible teaches us to love our neighbors. The bible never teaches us to hate our enemies, and Jesus corrects this false teaching, and he cuts to the heart of the matter, and the heart of the matter is this: if we are children of God, then we should expect the world to treat us the way the world treated God's son Jesus Christ, and if we are children of God, then we are expected to treat the world the way that Jesus Christ treated us. John 15, 18 through 19, Jesus tells his disciples, "If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." Jesus promises to be with us, he promises his holy spirit, but Jesus never promises us health, or wealth, or comfort, or power, or influence, or success in this life. What he does promise us is this, John 16:33, he says, "I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart, I've overcome the world." He promises us peace, he promises us victory, and he also promises that before the victory there will be tribulation. Following Jesus will be hard, and we should expect that the world is going to treat us the way the world treated Jesus, but Jesus expects us to respond to them the way he responded to us, and how has Jesus responded to us? We see this in Romans chapter 5. Paul writes in verse 6 that, "While we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die, but God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God, for if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." This command to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, this is one of the most radical, extreme things that Jesus ever commands us to do, but when Jesus commands us to love our enemies and when he tells us to pray for those who persecute us, he's not commanding us to do anything that he himself hasn't already done for us. He was betrayed, beaten, mocked, and he turned the other cheek. He went the extra mile. He gave us the shirt off his back. He took our ragged, filthy, soiled garments, and put them on himself, and in exchange he clothed us with the robes of his own righteousness. He loved us while we were yet his enemies, and as he hung on the cross, he prayed for his persecutors. "Father, forgive them. They know not what they do." The perfect, sinless son of God laid down his life so that enemies of God could become sons and daughters, acquitted, forgiven, reconciled, made new, and adopted into the household of God, and now, as God's children, we are called to do the same. To love our enemies, to pray for their salvation, and to understand we were once enemies of God who have been reconciled to him through the blood of Jesus Christ, and that's what we want for them as well. As Jesus concludes this section of the sermon so far with this command in verse 48, it says, "You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect, because the standard that I'm calling you to is perfection. That's the calling, that's the goal. Be perfect. That is the what of the sermon on the mount so far." As your heavenly father is perfect, that is why, that is the reason, that's the motivation that we have, that we press on towards this goal of perfection in Christ because we have a perfect heavenly father who's loved us, and just like any child, we want to be just like our dad when we grow up. This is what God is like, this is what our king, his son Jesus Christ, is like, and this is what we want to be like as well. If you're here today and you're not perfect, welcome to the club. You need Jesus. Repent. Put your faith in him. If you're here today and you are perfect, you are a self-righteous liar, and you really need Jesus, and repent, put your faith in him today, and understand that the bad news is bad. You are bad. You are really bad. You're worse than you really even know, and there's absolutely nothing that you can do to make things right with God, that your good deeds are never going to be enough to outweigh the bad. The good news is that's not the way you enter the kingdom of heaven. From the very beginning of the sermon, Jesus made it clear, Matthew 5:3, when he said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The way into God's kingdom, you don't begin a right relationship with God by appealing to a list of righteous deeds and qualifications. You begin with a contrite heart, with a broken spirit that acknowledges your weakness and cries out to God for help. Scripture tells us if you repent, if you turn from your sin and put your faith in Jesus Christ, and call on his name, that you will be saved and you can do that today. If you want to do that today, we would just ask that you'd come and talk to us. We'd love to talk to you about that. We would love to pray for you. Come find us after the service, or you can mark that on your connection card, and we'd love to just follow up with you this week, and talk more about what this means and what the next steps to following Jesus would be, and with that being said, would you please join me in prayer? And we'll spend some more time in worship together.
Sermon on the Mount Week 4
February 14, 2021 • Matthew 5:27–32
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston in our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning, welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan, I'm one of the pastors here at Mosaic along with Pastor Shane, and Pastor Andy, and if you're new, or visiting, we'd love to connect with you. We do that either through a connection card in the worship guide that you received on the way in, or the virtual connection card in the app, or on our website. If you fill it out, we'll get in touch with you over the course of the week. Would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's Word. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a good God, and a good Father. And we thank you, Lord that you, before the foundation of the world, you imagined us into existence. That we are a product of your imagination, that in your heart, you foresaw who we would be and you made us so. And we thank you that you created us in your image with an imagination, and you have given us this imagination so that we use it for good to imagine realities of how we can serve people, and do good, and further the common good instead, Lord we've sinned. And so often our imaginations are used as a weapon for evil and sin. And Lord, we thank you that you did not leave us in our sin, but you sent Jesus Christ, the perfect image of the invisible God. We thank you Jesus, that you lived the perfect life, that you never sinned against anyone, and not God, not people. You love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and your imagination. And you love neighbor as self. You never treated anyone as an object, and you never dehumanized anyone with sin. And you went to the cross and Lord, you bore the weight that we deserve, the punishment that we deserve. You experienced hell being forsaken by God, so that we would not have to be. And we thank you. Holy Spirit, that you give us access to the gospel by grace, through faith. And I pray today Lord, give us a deep faith for your Word, that when you say something is sin and that something leads to pain and depravity, and shame, let us believe it. And when you say that we can be free of sin because where the Spirit is, here freedom is. Let us believe it and act upon that faith. Bless our time in the Holy Scriptures, we love you, and we pray all this in Christ's name, amen. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. Perfect, perfect day for a nice sermon on lust. And that's what we're talking about today. The title of the sermon is Lust and Imagination. As we're going through a Sermon on the Mount, the context is that Jesus Christ is King, and he says, "The kingdom of God is at hand. The way that you enter into the kingdom of God is by repentance through faith." And once he gathers his disciples who have repented of sin, he explains to them this new order of life. It's a manifesto he's given us of the christian life of how we as Christians are to live. And he's given us the same standard that God gave in the very beginning. And just a word here on theology to set a meta narrative of what we're talking about, the theology of creations that God created everything by the power of his word. And he created us humans in his image, and he created us to enjoy him primarily, him first and foremost, secondarily creation. He gives us good gifts in creation to be used according to his guidelines, according to his laws. And he created us in such a way that the more we live according to his will, the more we glorify him, the more satisfaction we experience. Augustine said, "Our hearts are restless until they find the rest in you." It's like there's a missing piece in our hearts, and that missing pieces is Jesus, it's worshiping God, is being in trance with him. It's adoring him, loving him, being captivated by him with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind. It's like those security websites. When you get on some of these financial websites, and they show you the puzzle, and there's a puzzle piece that you need to move into the empty spot. And on a daily basis, God is saying, "Jesus is that piece that we need to be filled with satisfaction." So God created us with a need for him. And the other thing I want to connect that with as he created us in his image and were a product of his imagination. So he imagined us, and created us in his image. So the fact that we're in his image is we have an imagination. It's an incredible gift from God to have an imagination, and that imagination... And if you just think about how much of life you live in your imagination, two thirds, more? As you're sitting, especially if you get good at your job, you could be all day without even thinking about your job. You're just doing your job, and you were imagining realities. Every time you think about the past, and memories, that's imagination at work. Anytime you think about a better reality here, anytime you think about future realities, it's imagination at work. And one of the things that scripture teaches is that every single part of our person has been marred. The image of God in us has been marred by sin, and therefore imagination has been marred by sin. So that imagination which was created to do good and think of better reality, that imagination is sinful. So this is what Jesus Christ is talking about today, and he talks about lust, and he talks about this deep desire, he's talking about the capacity to imagine good things and act upon them, or imagine bad things and act upon. And this is a very relevant sermon for everybody. The latest statistics say that 95% of people struggle with lust. The other 5% struggle with lying. It's everybody, every single one of us. As my wife says, "Everybody have dirty mind, everybody." We all need Jesus. We all need cleansing. We're all on level playing field there. So that's the context with it. And we'll look at this text from the perspective of, is your imagination captivated by God? And that's the only place you'll find satisfaction. If not, there's things we have to do by grace through faith, with repentance, fighting those areas in order to be faithful to the Lord. With that said, would you look at the text with me? We're in Matthew 5:27-32, "You have heard that it was said, 'you shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away for it is better that you lose one of your members then that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away for it's better that you lose one of your members then that your whole body go into hell. It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except on the ground of sexual morality, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery." This is the reading of God's Holy and fallible authoritative Word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Four points to frame up our time. First, what's the big deal with lust? Second, lust is never satisfied just physically. Third, fighting lust with faith, and forth, we'll talk about marriage and divorce. So first of all, what's the big deal with lust? And I asked this because from our cultural perspective where you, and this is a secular humanist worldview, where humanity, humans, people are at the center of the universe and there is nothing above them. So, whatever you do, as long as you're not harming anybody that's good. So, why the radical language that Jesus is using. First in verse 27, I'll point out that Jesus emphasizes the heart. Verse 28. "But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in heart." It's the heart. We see in the 10th commandment "Thou shall not envy. Thou shall not desire your neighbor's spouse." We see the desire there in commandment number 10. Jesus here goes into commandment number seven and says, that's the same thing. "Thou shall not commit adultery." It begins in the heart. The other thing I want to point out here is that from the perspective of Jesus. Jesus, primarily talking to his disciples, primarily talking to men. Men, you need to listen. You need to heed this commandment. And obviously it doesn't apply just to men, but he's talking to his disciples, so it applies to everybody. The assumption here is behind this commandment, behind this call to purity command to purity of the heart is the assumption is that sex is a lot more powerful than you know. It's mysterious, it's an untamable power. That's the assumption here from God's perspective. That's why Jesus uses such strong language and giving a prescription of how to deal with it. How to deal with it. This is verse 29. "If your right eye causes you sin, tear it out, throw it away for it's better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell." And he uses the same language with the hand. "If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, throw it away for it's better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell." Jesus, why are you bringing hell into this? We're talking about lust, we're talking about adultery and Jesus says the consequence for this is hell. It's being forsaken by God forever. Why such strong language? Why this importance, this gravitas of lust. And partially other times I've preached this sermon and I'm like, look at the wisdom behind God's commandment. God cares about the individual. And God also cares about other individuals. And God cares about the family and God cares about society. So there is divine wisdom and fighting lust then leads to more blessing. That's not how I'm dealing with it today. Basically what Jesus is saying is, "I'm God, and I'm telling you how to live. And if you do not obey my Word, there are consequences, you are liable to judgment." That's how Jesus talks about. Back when I started my ministry, when people come to me, and say, "I'm struggling with lust and Pastor Jan, can you help me?" And I would give them like practical things to do. "Hey, put some filter on your computer. And if it's your phone, that's causing you to sin, get a flip phone, and get an accountability partner, and all that." Now, whenever anyone comes to me and says, "I'm struggling with sin." I say, "Pluck out your eye. Cut off your hand," because it is that serious. Obviously Jesus isn't talking about doing this physically literally, it's a hyperbole. But it's hyperbole, in a very arresting language, in a very extreme language. Hyperbole to say this radical measure is an index of how radical, and dangerous this sin is. In order for you to overcome this sin, you need to first understand that God hates it, and that there are dire consequences over it. And God is a God not just over your actions, but over your desires. God is a God over your imagination. That God has jurisdiction over the realities that you imagine, over your fantasies. And here he brings in the word hell, and it's Gehenna. And Gehenna was the garbage dump outside of Jerusalem where the fire would just keep burning. And he says, "That's a metaphor for what hell is." He's not saying that's exactly what hell, it's a metaphor. And whenever God uses a metaphor to describe hell, sometimes it's darkness, sometimes it's this fire that can't be quenched. The reality is always worse than the metaphor. So what are you saying is the reality is of this lust. If it keeps burning, and if you don't deal with this now, and then you die, and we are eternal beings. Well, if you have been forsaken by God in this world, then you will be forsaken in the next world and this fire just keeps on growing. And the assumption is that sex isn't just an appetite, that it is powerful, it's like a fire. And the right context in marriage to one man, one woman in covenant for a lifetime. It can lead to goodness, and a blessing from God. In the wrong context, can lead to devastation, just like a fire in a fireplace leads to light an ambiance, warmth, wrong contest, devastation. And that's the problem with our culture. We have mishandled this. We have absolutely mishandled this because we assume it's just an appetite, and we don't take God at his Word because we think it's just an appetite. Well God says, "No, it's not just physical, it has all kinds of spiritual manifestations, and consequences." And Satan's temptation here is the same temptation that he brought in the very beginning. The temptation is even as you're listening right now, even as I read the text the temptation is, is it really that bad? Is this sin really that bad? Did God really say? Did God really say that if you eat of it, you will die. Did God really say that? And what Satan did with Eve the very beginning, by tempting her to eat the forbidden fruit, he does today in terms of lust, and sex. Did God really say, and does God really have jurisdiction of this area of your life? And basically what Satan is doing is it's a power play. You don't have to submit to God. You can be your own god, and you decide what's good, and evil. You decide what's blessing, and what's cursing. He comes in and he attacks the imagination. Just imagine a world without God. Imagine a reality without God, with no consequences for your actions. This is John Lennon's signature song. Imagine a world without God. Imagine a world without God, without religion. Imagine that above is only sky. If we imagine such a world, one lacking country's, possessions, when we imagine all the people living in peace, unity, happiness. I think what John Lennon did was trying to create this flower power paradise that has no basis in reality. Nietzsche was more right. "If there is no God, and people do whatever they want, it leads to absolute chaos, and nihilism, and just abyss." But this is what seeing does is imagine. Imagine a world without God. Well, okay. Let's imagine that world without God. Most people live as if there is no God, and how's that going? Look at the consequences of sexual sin in our culture. I want to flip that around, and say, imagine a world where people obey this. Imagine a world where people will obey the sexual ethic of Christianity, of the gospel, of Scripture. Imagine a world where people understood the power of sexuality. Imagine a world of people would fight lust, and not have sex unless it's in a committed relationship of a husband and a wife. The greatest pandemic in the world today is not COVID. The greatest pandemic is fatherlessness where men do not submit to God, do whatever they want, and now everyone bears the consequences of that. You know this cliche, when a man has a daughter, and he's like, "Oh, now I understand. Now I understand that I've been objectifying women my whole life. Now I'm going to protect my daughter. And I will protect my daughters. I got four of them. If anyone ever tries to objectify my daughters, I've got guns my left, and my right. And I have a permit to carry those. I will absolutely obliterate everyone in Jesus name." No, but imagine viewing every single person, the way God intended you to view each other, as image bearers of God, not just an object of gratification. And that's what Satan comes in and he perverts our eyes where now we view people as objects instead of image bearers of God. The other objection is to the sexual ethic and lust is, if I don't express myself sexually, then I'm not being true to myself, and understand that if self is all there is, that's a fair objection, but self is not all there is. There is a God and you are not central, he is. And if there is a God and his Word is true, then being true to yourself is actually a terrible idea because what does it mean to be true to yourself, to act on every single impulse from the inside that's false. Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately seek who can understand it." Their sin inside, and we can't act upon single inclination that we have. Genesis 6:5. This is the text right before the flood. God says this, "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually." Intention of the thoughts is an imagination of the thoughts. That sin starts in the heart, and it captivates the imagination. And if it's not dealt with here, it leads to all kinds of brokenness. The other objection I hear from young people when it comes to lust and sexuality is, "I just need to get this out of my system. While I'm young, I need to get this out of my system." That's false, that's like pouring gasoline on fire. You're just jacking up your system, and that you're creating memories that can never be removed and heartache that you're going to deal with for years to come. The other objection is, "I'm not harming anyone." Well, that's false, there is a God. And when you break his commandments, you're not just harming yourself, you're harming others, and you're breaking the heart of God. Lust adulterates you, it adulterates the people around us. So that's what's the big deal because God says it's a big deal. So second, lust is never satisfied just physically. Let's define our terms. What is lust? It's the Greek word, (speaking in foreign language). It's used 62 times in the New Testament, only twice it's used for sex. What does it mean? It means not just desire, but inordinate desire. It's desire out of control. It's when you take a physical thing and try to get from it, transcendence or spiritual satisfaction. You take a good thing, and you try to get from it only what you can get from God. So in this sense lust is more than just in the context of sexuality. If sex is your ultimate desire, you'll never have sex enough. If money is the ultimate desire or fame, or acceptance, or things, or attention, or food, or cars, or drink, or success, security, beauty, you will never have enough if this is the ultimate thing. And how do you know you're making something the ultimate thing? It's when you look at the commandments of God, and say. "No, getting this is more important than obedience to God." Now it becomes an idol, and it begins to control us. The more you try to satisfy lust, the more this desire grows. And if you try to quench lust with sex only, it'll just continue being unsatisfied, and grow. And this is why there's rehab centers for sexual addiction. And you go to these rehab centers, and ask people, how did this start? You don't wake up addicted to illicit sex. It starts little, by little, by little, and the fire keeps growing, and growing, and growing and all. The other thing I want to point out is, on the one hand our culture says, "Sex is no big deal, have a good time." On the other hand, we know that the consequences are grave. We know that there's shame and a regret. We know that people do things that should not be done. We know this. We know when people get caught on Zoom for doing things that they should not be doing. Our culture condemns that. Why do we do that? Because we understand it's written on our heart that this is wrong. There's a lot wrong with it. Lust is a black hole that's never filled with just sex, or things. And this is why we need the gospel of Jesus Christ. What we're desperately longing for isn't just a physical experience. We're longing for intimacy, we're longing for a true love, we're longing to be filled deep inside, and only God can do that. That's why the gospel of Jesus Christ is so powerful. When you look at Jesus Christ who never committed a sin with his eye, or his hand, and never lusted in his heart. And then he goes to the cross, and on the cross, he dies for our sin. He bears the penalty as if he had lusted. As if he had committed adultery, and he's dying on the cross. And he says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" What's he talking about? He's going through hell. He's experiencing God forsakingness. And which is hell, why does he do that if he was perfect, he's not dying for his sin. He's dying for our sin, and when you realize that this is how much you're loved, that despite all of your sin, despite lust, despite everything, you are still loved, and God died on the cross for your sins, you accept forgiveness. Now you have access to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit fills us, and now we have the power to overcome the sin. And now we have the power to take every single one of our imaginations and take them captive. Okay, real quick imagination audit. We're going to do a little imagination audit. How's your imagination? How are you doing with... And am looking at less from the perspective of imagination to show you that it's a lot wider. The scope is a lot wider than just looking at porn. Porn's included, but it's a lot wider. It's when we fantasize realities, and create these realities that are forbidden by God. So imagination audit, what are you feeding your imagination on a daily basis? And are those things leading to satisfaction of the soul, or are they creating a dissatisfaction, and a fire that's pulling you away from God? What are you looking at? What are you listening to? What are you reading? And the visual input is really important. Jesus connects lust here, it starts with the heart. And then he says that it leads to adultery in the heart. Lust in the heart, adultery in the heart. And then you look. The looking is a third part. What he is connecting is less than the imagination with images. And there is this deep connection. So as Christian, we need to be very careful at what are you looking at? What do you spend your time looking at in TV shows? This is movies. This is social media accounts, and content. What are you feeding? And I will tell you, the smarter you are, the more careful you got to be with that stuff. The better memory you have, the more you gotta be careful with that. So what are you listening to in terms of podcasts, in terms of music, how much of pop culture and pop music is built around inflaming people's lust? And then it goes deeper than that. It goes deeper than the stuff we consume on a daily basis. What about memories? What memories, dreams, or mental pictures have been particularly vivid in your mind that you keep going back to, and you know you shouldn't be. How have they been impacting you? How did they make you feel? And which of these mental pictures have been encouraging, and life-giving, and how do these mental pictures stack up against God's Word? When you're daydreaming about the future, are you daydreaming in a way where your God is in those daydreams? God is in those fantasies. Is God in those realities? Or are you doing this in order to escape God, escape obedience, escape God's Word. And it has to do with people, not just realities. It has to be dreaming about doing things with other people. Do you find yourself daydreaming about a person, or interactions you wish to have with that person that you shouldn't? Do you reach out with hopes of getting specific response? Would you be embarrassed if that person knew about your fantasies, or imaginations about them? Would you be embarrassed if the people closest to you knew the things that you were imagining? Are you building up expectations about how things are going to turn out? Are you spending a lot of time analyzing past interactions, and to the point where it's idolatrous. And the big idea here is that once you become a Christian, you come to the cross of Christ, you repent of sin, you got to make it a practice of putting off old imaginations, and putting on the new. We need to practice fighting back against evil imaginations. And just real quick, the easiest way to do that is the very second you have a fantasy, or imagination that you know you shouldn't, an image pops up, you need to repent of that, and ask for the Lord's forgiveness, and ask for the Lord to purify the heart. And Scripture says that those who are pure in heart, they see God. How do we see God? With our minds eye, with our imagination. Third point is, how do we do this practically fighting lust with faith? When you believe in Jesus Christ, you believe in way that captivates your whole being, that's true faith. It's not cerebral in the mind. We are called to believe with all of our being. And when we come to the Lord, we repent of all of our sin. The Lord justifies us and the Lord justifies us and says, "You're acquitted and you're not guilty, you are forgiven of all sin." And if you are a true Christian, you have a desire to fight sin. So justifying faith is lust fighting faith, where you want God above all else. And this is how the gospel redeems our imagination. Romans 6:14, "For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace." So when you come to God, you realize that he loves you so much, that he gave his son. He fills your heart with a great love. Once you experience the Holy Spirit, once you experience the cleansing power of the blood of Christ, once you experience all of that, you want to do everything you can to stay as close to him as possible. This why lust is so dangerous because it pulls us away from God. But once you've experienced that, he's re-calibrated the taste buds of your soul, and you want to do everything you can to be as close to him as possible. It's like when you know real food, when you know delicious food and you know exactly where I'm going with this, when you have a steak, a delicious ribeye with asparagus, if you'd like. When you have like this is real food you have that, it's not that easy to go back to junk. Yesterday we took our girl, Tanya, took our girls to just walk around Beacon Hill, and we walk them by Upper Crust. And my daughter Milan, my youngest one, she stops and she goes. She's got my nose, which I'm really sorry about. And the flaps go and it's just so cute. And then we're like, "No, we're not having pizza. We're going to be good." My wife made Borscht at home, because that's what we do she's Ukrainian. So my daughter's like, "Oh, no." So then we keep walking, and we go to the Boston Common, and then we're walking by the McDonald's. And then my third daughter stops, and she goes, and I knew at that moment we're going to McDonald's. And when you go to McDonald's, you know what you're doing. You know like you are sinning, you are breaking all kinds of commandments. And as you eat, it is so good. Then you're like, "Ah, yeah." And then you know you're going to hate yourself as you doing it. You're going to hate yourself five minutes later. And then five minutes later goes by, and you're like, "I just consume like 4,000 calories. I still feel a little hungry, and I hate myself." That, that right there. So something like that happens on the spiritual level. When you taste God, taste, and see that he is good. That's love for God, that fills your heart, and that gives you power to fight lust. You know where this is going to lead, plus it's going to pull you away from God. You know it's not going to satisfy. So your heart is filled with love for God. And that gives you power to fight lust, and not love that lust. That's why Jesus in verse 28, he emphasis on the heart. "But I say that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Then progression is heart then adultery. Then the look, then the action. You're loving something more than God. So how do you fight that? You fight that desire with a greater desire, you fight that fire with a greater fire. You fight the lust with the love. One of my favorite quotes on this topic is, Thomas Chalmers, the 1840s, and the famous sermon called the Expulsive Power of a New Affection. He says, "The only way to break the hold of a beautiful object on the soul is to show an object even more beautiful." So true change for lust doesn't come from the outside. That's not where it starts. It doesn't start with self-discipline. It starts from the inside, repentance, and faith and God fills your heart with love, and then on the outside. So, it's a clean heart that leads to clean eyes, and clean hands. The other thing that you got to believe God's Word, you got to believe that his Word is true about the importance of fighting it. The other thing you have to believe is that you can be free. I mean, so many Christians, when I counsel them on this topic, they're like, "It's impossible to be free of lust. It's possible to have victory over the sin." And that right there, that faithlessness always leads to defeat. Do you even believe that you can be victorious over this lust? Do you have this vision for your life? In the imagination, can you right now imagine being free of lust today? Let's string the wings together. Can you imagine having freedom from lust tomorrow? Do you have that? Can you imagine that? And as you imagine that, ask for the Lord's help, and fight the good fight, and be free of lust tomorrow. Can you imagine being free for a week? Can you imagine being free for 21 days? And that's what they say. It takes 21 days to break any addiction in 30 days, whatever it is. Can you imagine this new reality for yourself? Do we do it perfectly? Of course not. But it's got to be like we look at the charts of the stock market, stocks always keep going up. You go up, up, up, up, down, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, and you keep going. A year goes by five years, ten. It just keeps going up. That's what growth, and righteousness must look like for every true Christian. One of my favorite illustrations of this topic is Augustine of Hippo, struggled with one of the greatest minds that ever existed, struggled with lust as a young man. And then one time after his conversion walks by, he's walking through town, walks by a former sexual partner, and he doesn't acknowledge her. And then she turns, and calls out, "Augustine it is I." And he turns and responds. "Yes, I know, but it is no longer I. The transformation at the core, that changes your identity. Once you're baptized into the faith, by the Holy Spirit, and baptized with water, there is a baptism of the imagination that needs to happen. Scripture says, "Be transformed by the renewal of your mind." And Augustine writes about his conversion so poetically, he says this, "Late have I loved you, O Beauty..." He's talking about God. "so ancient, and so new, late have I loved you! You were within me and I was outside and I sought you outside and in my loneliness fell upon those things that you have made. But you called to me, and cried to me and broke my deafness. And you sent forth your beams and shone upon me and chased away my blindness, you breathe your fragrance upon me, and I drew in my breath and now I pant for you. I tasted you. And now I hunger, and thirst for you." Like that true relationship with God. That true spiritual connection with God through prayer, through meditation, upon Scripture, through silence, through solitude, through fasting, that's where the victory begins. Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." So that's where you start love for God. I believe in you, I love you. He fills your heart with that love. And you want to honor him and delight him as you delight in him. But you can't, that's not just where it stops. There are things you got to do in terms of mortifying the flesh. Love for God, and mortification of flesh are the one-two combination of knocking out lust in your life. And the mortification of the flesh means, you have to take physical actions. As Jesus says, like it was a hyperbolic, "Pluck out your eye and cut off your..." But you have to take radical actions where you know that the things are causing you to sin, and stoking up lust in your life, igniting that. You need to cut that out of your life. And you see the one-two combination, Colossians 3:1-5, verse five, "Put to death therefore, what is earthly in you." But it starts with filling your imagination with God, Colossians 3:1, "If then you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds." And this is what he's saying, imagine, "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." That's the imagination. That's your heart filled with, you're in trance with God, and then "Put to death therefore." So you will stop there. "Therefore." Based on all of that, "put to death therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual morality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry." Put it to death. He's not saying incrementally choke the life out of it. He's using this language of crucify the sin in your life. Galatians 5:16, "But I say walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh." To feed the Spirit weakens the flesh. The other really just practical point is make no provision for the flesh. Make no provision. Don't put yourself in places that stoke the flesh, and lust and put yourself in places that draw you near to God, and give you a desire for purity. This is Romans 13:13-14. And by the way, I've said it before, oh 2020, 2021, our present day. This is the hardest time to ever be sexually pure, and fighting lust and et cetera, et cetera. I don't think that's true in the Roman Empire, Saint Paul is writing things like this, "Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness." It's not talking about 2020, he's talking about the year like '70. So this has always been an issue, "Not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual morality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires." So simply he's saying, don't put yourself in a place where you will be tempted, simply stay away. The father in Proverbs 5 tells the son to not go near the door of temptress, because she can't tempt you, if you can't see her. She can't tempt you if you're not in a place where you can be tempted. You know yourself, and you know the situations that cause you to lust, stay away from those situations, and pursue righteousness. Job says in 31:1, he says, "I've made a covenant." Meaning I made a decision. Ironclad decision. "I made a covenant with my eyes. How could I gaze at a Virgin?" Another translation says, "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl." And later in the same chapter, Job admits that God would judge him if he had given in to the temptation, Job 31:7-9. "If my step has turned aside from the way, and my heart has gone after my eyes." So sometimes your eyes go after your heart, and sometimes your heart goes after your eyes "If any spot has stuck to my hands then let me sow, and another eat and let what grows for me be rooted out. If my heart has been enticed toward a woman and I have lain in wait at my neighbor's door." So he's saying the sexual sin has to be cut out, stamped out before the temptation can take a foothold in the mind. The other way that Scripture talks about dealing with lust is this language of putting it to sleep, and awakening it. Meaning we have control over this, Song of Solomon. "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases." That you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. So there things that we do with our imagination that awakens things that should not be awakened. Speaking of imagination, Satan attacks our imagination by showing us the worm of whatever the action is. And the way that we can fight that is by imagining the consequences. So Satan definitely wraps the stain of sin, with a tasty worm. The wiser prudent Christian can see through the worm. And this takes a little practice. You can see through the worm to see the hook where you know... Think about the consequences, think about how this is going to hurt you. Think about how this is going to potentially become a new rhythm. Think about how it might impact the people in your life. Either people who are close around you now, or people who will be in your life in the future. James 1:13-15, "Let no one say when he's tempted, 'I'm being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it's conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown, brings forth death." The emphasis there of responsibility is not on someone else. O someone else caused me to sin, or someone else tempted me. No, it's from the heart. Therefore, we bear responsibility, and when God tells us to not sin, and put to death, he's telling us we have power to do it by the power of the Spirit. The famous illustration in Holy Scripture of this is King David. King David doesn't go to war with... When he was supposed to go to war, he's on his roof of his palace. And he sees Bathsheba bathing. And the issue there wasn't that he saw that. Scripture says that he gazed on her. "She was beautiful to behold." He saw and he continued to see, and that led to all kinds of brokenness. So, the question isn't like, "Are we going to see content that's going to create lust in us?" The question is, are you going to gaze? Or are you going to fight it? We have control of our eyes. We have control of our ears, what we hear, what are you going to focus on? And finally here in this just practically, Christians are good at repenting of sin. We run to Jesus after we sin. We also got to learn to run to Jesus before we sin. When you're tempted, as soon as you're tempted run to God, and ask for forgiveness, and ask for cleansing of the Spirit, and the power of the Spirit. Finally, marriage and divorce. The reason why Jesus talks about lust and adultery in this text, and then he connects to the marriage is because it's all intertwined. That's important to note. And then Matthew 5:31-32, "It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual morality, makes her commit adultery. Whoever marries a divorced woman, commits adultery." What's Jesus talking about? He said that you have heard it that it was said, he's not talking about Scripture, which is what he would have said. "You have read what is written." And he's talking about the interpretation of the rabbis, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the lacks interpretation of the law when it comes to faithfulness, and loyalty in marriage. According to the rabbis, a man could divorce his wife for basically anything. If you look at the Mishnah, if you liked another woman better, if his wife spoiled the dinner or if she was barren, and if he consider her lazy, if he didn't like her looks, basically at any point, he just divorced her if he choose to. Now, that was the interpretation of the rabbis. And what happened was... And basically that's how marriage, and divorce works in our day. We fell out of love, and that's it. And the rabbis took the biblical understanding of marriage and flipped it on its head. The Bible understanding of marriage is a covenant. It is a covenant between one man and one woman for life. And they turned into a contract and in a contract, here's your terms, you're going to meet your terms. Here's my terms, if you don't meet your side of the bargain, where out, there's no more contract. And within covenant, you do what God does with us. God made a new covenant with us, and he says, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." And that's the intention of marriage to be a picture of God's love for us. And this is exactly what the rabbis did. They flipped it into a contract. Whenever I officiate a wedding, I say the same thing every time, "Dearly beloved we're gathered here today in the sight of God on this face of this company, et cetera, et cetera." And then I say, "What we are witnessing here today is a miracle. We're gathered to witness a miracle. And the miracle isn't a confession of past love, and it's not a profession of current love. It's a promise of future love, no matter what, until death do us part." That's the miracle of marriage and that's God's intention for marriage. And the rabbis came in and they realized that that's impossible. God's standard of marriage is impossible. So we need to lessen the law. And the clarification of this text happens in Matthew 19:3-9. "The Pharisees came to him and tested him by asking, 'Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?' And he answered, 'Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning, made them male and female and said, 'Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife. And the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.' And they said to him, 'Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce to send her away?' And he said, 'Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so, and I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual morality and marries another commits adultery.'" So it was the rabbis looked at the law and like to become one for life? Ah, we can't do that. They lessen the law, and Jesus comes in and says, "No, this is the standard. Divorce isn't allowed." And the reason why people divorced because of hardness of heart, and this is as real as it gets. And if you're married, you know exactly this hardness that comes. You got to deal with it. And the way that we deal with it is through the gospel. You audit your heart. Is there bitterness or hardness of heart toward my spouse? Go to the gospel, receive grace and mercy and that softens the heart. In terms of divorce, the reasons for divorce that are permissible in Scriptures, death, then you're separated from the spouse and so you can remarry. Adultery or sexual morality and desertion, that's 1 Corinthians 7. So in these cases, divorce from a biblical perspective is permitted though it's not desired. Reconciliation is to be saw instead, but it's permitted. Why such a high standard of marriage? Because it's sacred from God's perspective. If anyone remarries for any reason, other than sexual morality or desertion or death, that sin, however, our God is gracious and forgiving and whoever repents and confess his sin is forgiven immediately. So if someone remarries, or divorces and remarries for any other reason other than these three, the new marriage is initially adulterous, but not perpetually if there is repentance and if people seek repentance. And then if someone does remarry and seeks repentance, and you're like, "Oh, I shouldn't have remarried. I'm going to go back to my former spouse." No, once you're married, that's God's will for you. Finally, I'll close with this. In terms of imagination, in terms of what we're imagining about our past and present and future, one of my favorite texts is Philippians 4:8-9. It says this, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you." Don't just think about and imagine whatever, instead think and imagine about whatever's good and true and beautiful so that we can live lives that are good and true and beautiful and image forth the glory of God, amen. Let's pray, Lord, we thank you for this Word that you've given us. Lord and Jesus, we thank you for you are King and that you are King over every single square inch of our lives that you call us to faithfulness and fidelity in the same way that you are faithful to us. Lord, we pause right now to ask for forgiveness, if there's any hardness of heart in us, and if there's any place in our life where our imaginations have been captivated by things that they should not be captivated by, and we pray, forgive us and cleanse us. And by the power of the Spirit, ignite our imagination to think about you and love you and think about how we can do good work and how we can further the common good for your glory and our joy. And we pray this in Christ's Holy name, amen.
Sermon on the Mount Week 3
February 7, 2021 • Matthew 5:21–26
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Pray with me over the preaching of God's Holy Word. Heavenly Father, we thank You that You are a loving God. We thank You, Holy Trinity, that You are a relational God. And we thank You, Lord, that You have created us in Your image for relationship with You and with one another, and we do confess and we repent of the fact that we have sinned against You, therefore that relationship has been broken. And we've sinned against each other, and we do have broken relationships, but through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, through the grace that You offer, through the forgiveness that You offer, there is potential for reconciliation. Show us today the ways of reconciliation, the ways of forgiveness, the ways of mercy and grace. Show us from Your Holy Scripture, Jesus, that You fulfilled the law, that You were never unrighteously angry, that You never insulted anyone, You never insulted in a way to hurt their humanity. Instead, Lord, You taught the ways of life. And show us, Lord, that if we have broken relationships, if there is sin in our relationships with one another, there is definitely sin in our relationship with You, and that we are to lay down our offerings, lay down our worship even, and go and seek reconciliation. And Lord Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, continue to make us peacemakers seeking peace with You, seeking peace with one another, and extending peace to those who are not yet at peace with You. Bless our time in the Holy Scriptures, and we pray all this in the beautiful name of Jesus Christ. Amen. We're going through the Sermon on the Mount, the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever preached, Jesus Christ. And here in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ, after calling His disciples to repentance and to follow Him, He shows us how we enter into the Kingdom of God, which is through confessing that we are spiritually bankrupt, poverty of spirit, and mourning over our sin, and growing in meekness, which is submission to God in His Word, and then also hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Jesus shows us how we can be reconciled with God. And then, in this text, in our text today in the Sermon on the Mount, He shows us that we are to seek reconciliation in our relationships with people. Loving God, "Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind," we get it. That's great. Loving God. He's awesome. He's perfect. Loving someone who's perfect, steadfast, immutable, He doesn't change, not fickle, okay, we get that part. And then, God tells us, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Oh no. God's never living in Boston. That's the hard part. People are great. When our relationships are great, when things are going great, it's great. And then, when they're not, it's awful. It's heartbreaking. Today, we're going to talk about this connection between anger and hatred, and insults in terms of our relationships with people. Do people ever make you mad? Do you ever get fed up with people? Do you sometimes wish that certain people just weren't? Just didn't exist? Stalin famously said, "No person, no problem." And he also said, "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic." That mindset of, "I wish this person were not," that's the incipient form of genocide. That's where it starts. And this is exactly what Jesus Christ is talking about is talking about today. This is the first of six paragraphs in which Jesus takes a moral law and He says, "You have heard that it was said by those of old," and then, He brings in the true meaning of the law, the fullness, and this is part of what it means that Jesus fulfilled the law, that He absolutely, completely obeyed it, and He also brought the fullness of the Word. He kept the law, and He told us that, if we are to be followers of His, we are to repent of our sins. And one of the ways that we know we're true followers of the Lord is that we want to fulfill His commandments. You have a deep desire for true, better obedience than that of the Pharisees. And what He does in these six paragraphs is He sets up a righteousness that the Pharisees were teaching, a righteousness that's common to people, and then a true, deeper, more abiding righteousness, the righteousness that Christ fulfilled, but it's also a righteousness that he demands of us and He doesn't just demand it. He works it into our hearts and our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is what we talked about this week. He gives us this law and we realize we can't fulfill it. And then, that brings us to asking Him for grace. He gives us that grace, which now empowers us to live according to His law. And no one does it perfectly, therefore we need Jesus, who does empower us. This whole segment, my wife and I yesterday were talking about the sermon, and she's like, "What are you preaching on?" I said this, and she said, "Ha, good luck." And I said, "Can you please help me with this?" And she said, "Oh, great." We sat for a good hour and she told me about, "This is how you do it. Don't get angry with people. And when you say bad words, you've got to repent right way." And then, like an hour goes by and I hear her screaming at my kids, because it's bedtime now and they don't want to go to bed. In the Russian language, calling children the names of livestock, that's just a thing, you just do that. My parents did that, so we just do that. And I was like, "Baby, you can't just call them goats. We just talked about this. You can't." I can go into more graphic detail when she's not here. The first service, I'm like, "Yeah, I've still got to live with this person." But I also preached the sermon, and she's got to apply that, too. Okay. That's the cycle. Perfection, you can't do it. Jesus, grace, back, back. This is what we're talking about today. Matthew 5:21-26. Would you look at the text with me? Matthew 5:21-26. "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; and whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put into prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny." This is the reading of God's Holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word. May we write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame our time. First, we'll talk about love and law. Then, we'll talk about how lovelessness is equal to murder, tantamount to murder in the heart. And then, three, that love takes the first step. Love and law. Matthew 5:21. "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.'" Jesus does not say, "You have read what is written." He says, "You have heard what is said." Why is that important? Because whenever Jesus quotes the Word of God, He said, "It is written." He says that over and over. "It is written." That's the Word of God. Here, He's not saying you have read it was written. He says, "You have heard what was said," meaning He's not contradicting the Word of God, He's contradicting the interpretation, the oral tradition from the rabbis and the Pharisees over the previous centuries. And what the rabbis did was, they would look at God's law and they would say, "This is impossible to fulfill, so we're going to make it a little more approachable, a little more doable," and they would interpret in a way where the heart wasn't even necessary to fulfill the law. Love wasn't necessary. You could fulfill the law according to the tradition of the Pharisees just through outward behavior. For example, this commandment, it's not as visible, but we'll get into it later. They would say, "You shall not murder. Period." Meaning, if you do not kill a person physically, then you have not contradicted this law. Period. What they didn't understand was, and what they didn't want to understand is when God gives a law in the negative, this is a law that says don't do a certain thing, He assumes, He enjoins and it entails that you do the positive thing. "Thou shall not kill," but the positive side is, "Thou shall care for life and stand for life, and thou shall love your neighbor as yourself." It's not as visible here. We'll get into that. But it is more visible in Matthew 5:43. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'" You have heard that it was said. Well, where is it written, this whole sentence? Well, the first part written, "You shall love your neighbor," is Leviticus 19:18. But not once in the Scriptures does it say, "Thou shall hate your enemy." That's a rabbinical tradition, interpretation because they said, "Oh, the law tells us to love my neighbor, but what if my neighbor is my enemy? Well, if my neighbor is my enemy, then I can hate him." That's a human idea foisted upon the text. That's why Jesus comes in and He contradicts this rabbinical interpretation, pharisaical approach, because the pharisaical approach was to always take God's Word and to lessen it, to relax the true demand of the law, which is love, and to make obedience a little easy, a little more accessible, a little less demanding. That's what we see, if you go throughout church history, this is a pattern that we see over and over and over. A lot of people would look at the church and say, "We've got to grow the church. We've got to get more people inside, and the way we're going to do that is to make the message more palatable. Let's not talk about the hard stuff, let's just talk about the easier stuff." And what happens is, they emphasized the easier things and they minimized the harder things, the things of the heart. So, they did that here with do not murder. If you didn't actually take an innocent person's life, then you fulfilled the commandments. If you didn't stick a knife into a heart, then you're good. If you didn't pull the trigger, then you're good. And they did the same thing with the next paragraph, which we'll get into next week, that if you didn't actually sleep with someone who is not your spouse, then you didn't commit adultery. And Jesus comes in and says, "No, it's not just about outward behavior. If you have lust in your heart for a person who is not your spouse, you have broken this commandment," and that's what Jesus does with this one. The murder. He says, "Do you have anger in your heart or hatred in your heart?" And what Jesus is doing is going deeper into every dark, shadowy crevice of our hearts. The Pharisees wanted to worry about sins, just breaking rules. Jesus wanted to worry about sin. He wanted people to worry about sin. A lot of people worry about what they do with their hands, and Jesus said, "It's not just about the hands, it's not just about your body, it's about your thoughts." You can contradict God's law in your thoughts and your desires. That's where Jesus is going. And the other thing that the Pharisees did is they would create this merit system to counterbalance their sin. This is why they loved rules and they would invent rules. If you broke God's commandment of, "Thou shall not commit adultery," well, if you do enough other stuff, if you give enough to the temple, if you make enough sacrifices, if you do enough of the cleansing and the ablutions of the Old Testament, then you're good. And if you can accumulate more good stuff than bad stuff, you're fine. That's where we are as a culture. "Are you going to Heaven?" "Well, yeah. I think so. I'm a good person. I've done more good than bad." That mindset, that pharisaical mindset, and this is why Jesus hammered the Pharisees all the time, that mindset gets you to a point where you don't need Jesus. Why do I need a redeemer to die for my sins? I'll just do more good than bad to get into Heaven. And this is the way that we tame sin in our culture. Most of us haven't killed anyone. Most of us haven't stolen anything major. Most of us haven't slept with anyone's spouse or never lied in court. And Jesus says, "What about the heart? Where is your heart?" And this is Matthew 15:19. "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, and murder, and adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a person." Eating with unwashed hands, these are manmade rules that they would add to the law of God, and they would focus on the manmade rules because I can do that, but the heart, that's impossible. Focusing on the heart gets me to a place where I realize that I am a broken sinner and I need repentance and forgiveness. Jesus cared about the spirit of the law, not the letter, because the letter kills and the spirit gives life. And I start here, where Jesus wants us to get to the point where the law is to bring us to a point where we realize our heart is full of sin. And it does that by showing us that the heart of the law is love, and I have not loved God perfectly, I have not loved people perfectly. That's where Jesus starts, and He contradicts the pharisaical mindset of just doing the outward thing, because if you can approach the next part of the text pharisaically, where Jesus says, "If you call anyone a fool, you are liable to the fire of hell." You can look at that pharisaically and say, "Okay, I won't call anyone this specific word, fool, but I've got a lot of other words that I can call anybody." Yeah, you get it. So, Jesus here is fighting the pharisaical mindset of, "I've done enough," and He wants us to get to a point where we really do look at the depth of the darkness of our heart, which is to bring us to the cross of Jesus Christ. The sixth commandment, it does prohibit premeditated murder, but that's not where it stops. "Thou shall not murder," that's the sin of commission. Don't commit murder. But also, there's sins of omission. Do not omit, what? To care for people and love people, and stand for life, and be pro-life from the womb to the tomb. Same thing with the other commandments. "Thou shall not steal." The positive side of the commandment is, "Thou shall care for the belongings of others, and thou shall be generous, and thou shall provide for those in need." The law wasn't just to prevent bad behavior, but also to promote good behavior. When it comes to, "Thou shall not murder," we ask, "Why is this commandment here?" Is it just because people are important? It's more than that. Why is this commandment here? People are important. Why are people important? Why does God say that people are important? Because people are created in the image of God. People image forth God. So, what God is saying is, "Every single person is Mine. They're created in My image," therefore, when you dehumanize someone with words, or with anger, you desire that they were not. What you're doing is, you are marring the image of God. You're trying to get rid of an image bearer. That's why that commandment is so important. When we love people, we are loving the God in whose image they are created. That's why point two is lovelessness is equal to murder, tantamount to murder. In verse 22, "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; and whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire." The modern standard of goodness, when you try to share the Gospel with someone, you're like, "I'm a sinner. You're a sinner. We're all a sinner. We all have transgressed the commandment of God," and people push back and they say, "No, I'm a good person. I've," what's the next sentence? "Never killed anybody. Never killed anybody." And this is actually very convenient, because Jesus says, "Actually, no. You have. You are a homicidal maniac in your heart every time you get on 93 and 95. Every single time." Some of us, we have committed genocide in our heart by being angry at just nations of people, or races of people, or ages of people. This is what Jesus is saying. In the heart level. This is where God is judging. He's not just judging the act, He's not judging what you've done, He's judging the things that you hope for in your heart. So, it's actually possible to kill someone in your heart, or with your tongue, and no one around you ever even knew that you disliked the person. He's talking about murder in the heart. Murder with the tongue. Why is this important? Because anger is incipient murder. That's a seed form. What kind of anger are we talking about? There's two words for anger in the Greek. There's thymós. Thymós is the quick burst of anger, anger that surges and then subsides. When you lose your temper, but then you regain everything, that's thymós. That's not the word that's used here. The word that's used here is orgē. It's the deep-seated animosity that seethes. It's something that you feed. It's a long-lived anger over which you brood. You nurse this anger. It's anger that you fan into flame by reminding yourself over and over how this person has hurt you, how they've wronged you, how wrongly you've been treated. This is the anger that Jesus is talking about, where we devote energy and intense activity to this. And this anger is destructive. It's murderous in character. There's people in your life that, after a falling out, you haven't talked to for years, but you think about them daily. There's perhaps family members with whom you haven't spoken in months or years. This is the anger that leads married couples to a place where you can't but divorce. It's an anger that has a corrosive effect on your heart and on your health. And it starts young. The whole bullying endemic, or pandemic, this is a big deal where kids learn that words hurt, and they throw words at one another, hurtful words, like daggers, in order to hurt. Anger in and of itself isn't necessarily evil. It's not always wrong to be angry. Sometimes it's wrong not to be angry. There's legitimate forms of anger. God Himself is indignant with evil. Psalm 7:11. "God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day." This is Jesus Christ making a whip and tossing the tables of tax collectors and moneychangers. Theologians say He probably did this twice, once at the beginning of His ministry, and once at the end. Nor is it wrong for humans to be angry at those with whom God is angry at the things that they do. It's healthy to feel moral outrage at injustice in the world, at racism. We are to be angry at racism, as we are to be angry at abortion. Our problem is our indignation and anger is not at sin or injustice, but usually it's when people offend us. It's a personal anger. It's when someone does something to slight my ego, and that's where my anger takes on. When Jesus was personally offended, He made the whip when He was offended for God's glory, there's an indignation against God's glory where these moneychangers weren't allowing people to come in and worship God. They were inhibiting people to worship God. He was doing that for God's glory. But when He Himself personally was offended, He didn't become angry. When He was unjustly arrested, when He was unfairly tried, when He was illegally beaten, contemptuously spit upon, crucified, mocked, what came out of His parched lips was, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." I Peter 2:23. "When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly." Martin Luther said, "An anger of love, one that wishes no one any evil, one that is friendly to the person but hostile to the sin." Jesus is referring to that kind of ... That's the righteous anger. He's referring to an unrighteous anger. He says, "Whoever is angry with his brother," and then He goes from anger to insult. They're interconnected. Anger to insult. And here, whoever insults, it's the word rhaka, it just means nobody. It means indifference. It means good for nothing. It's demeaning, denigrating, disdain, contempt for the other person. And you're not just saying, "You're a nobody," that's not the spirit of this word. He's saying, "I wish you were not." That's what the word means. This is what it means to insult is, this is the absolute worst form of hatred, which is indifference. I am indifferent. I wish you were not. And you're like, "I've never really done that," well, every one of us has. Every single one of us. My first year of marriage, my wife and I, we've been married now 14 years, my first year of marriage, this is the way that we would fight. She's from Ukraine. I'm from Estonia, former Soviet Union. We are really good at Cold War fighting. Cold War fighting is, you just don't talk to each other. We would do this for days on end. Just not one word. And I would look at her. I'm like, "You're so good at this." And we're at a point now where it's like, we're 15 years in and we don't have the energy to do that, or to seethe with this indignation. Nah. I'm sorry. You're sorry. We're all sorry. Okay. Let's keep going. I remember one time, my sister was, I think first year of college. I was a sophomore. We decided to buy a car together. We decided that it's a good idea to go splitskies on a car. We got a Nissan Ultima. Dark green. Still remember it. And the idea was she would use it part-time, I'll use it part-time. And it turned out that she used it like 99% of the time and whenever I needed it, she couldn't get it to me. I got so livid at her, and she wouldn't change, that one time I came home and I wrote her a note. I taped this note on her door to her bedroom. I wrote, "Have a nice life. Meh." And we didn't talk for like a year. That's the anger that He's getting at, where it's like this person does not exist. You might not do that to an individual, you might do it to groups of people. In Boston, people pretend children don't even exist. I feel like people treat dogs better than children when you're out and about. People call dogs, "This is my son, and I'm a dad to this." Don't do that, because words matter, and that's your dog. Ageism, where it's like a certain age of a person, now you no longer like. "You are not a category of a person to me." That's the dehumanization that he's getting at by saying the insult, rhaka. And then He says, "If you call someone a fool," mōros, what does Jesus mean here? Because Jesus often calls groups of people fools. He calls the Pharisees fools. Matthew 23:17. "You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred?" Luke 24:25. "And He said to them, 'O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!'" Jesus does use this term, fool, but then He says, "Don't call your brother a fool." What's going on here? Well, like I said in the very beginning, it's a matter of the heart, the posture of the heart. Is your posture of heart in saying a certain word towards a certain person, is the posture full of love or hate? Are you hoping to be helpful or hurtful? Jesus is saying, "I want to help you Pharisees. I want to turn you from the way of folly to the way of wisdom." The whole book of Proverbs is about this, about groups of people who are fools, that it leads to brokenness of life. He wants to turn them from that by calling a spade, a spade. It's all about the heart. Heidelberg Catechism says, "I am not to dishonor, hate, injure, or kill my neighbor by thoughts, words, or gestures," important to emphasize that, "And much less by deeds." This is what Jesus is talking about, this anger that leads to insults that leads to name-calling, verbal abuse. Did you know that murder is not one of the deadly sins? Which doesn't really make sense. Why wouldn't murder be one of the deadly sins? Murder isn't, wrath is. It's this anger that gets you to the point where you don't want this person to exist, and Jesus says, "Be careful," because that anger that's a hellacious anger, and that's why He connects all this, anger, hatred, insults, calling someone a fool, He connects it with hell. Liable to judgment. And then, He talks about fires of hell. Hell of fire, Gehenna. What He's referring to is a garbage heap outside of Jerusalem. Famous garbage heap. At one time, this is where human sacrifices were made to the pagan deity, Moloch, and then King Josiah comes in, makes religious reforms, and now it was just a garbage heap. But even at the time of Jesus, when the Romans decided that a person was unworthy of burial, they would bring the person to this garbage heap and they would be burned. Jesus is saying, "This is a visible representation of hell, of a place of eternal conscious suffering where, if you do not repent of this sin, if this sin wasn't paid for on the cross of Christ, this sin will be paid for for all of eternity in hell." Why does He say that? He's talking about words, calling someone a fool, insulting a person, anger at a person. The penalty for that is hell. And Jesus says, "Yes, because in insulting an image bearer of God and dehumanizing a human, you are sinning, transgressing against a holy God, in whose image they're made." This shows us the importance of repenting of our sin and turning to Christ. And it also shows us that we've got to be very careful with our words, because you can break a person with words. Proverbs 18:14. "A man's spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?" There's warnings all throughout the New Testament about this kind of anger. Galatians 5:19-21. We have the fruit of the flesh. "Now, the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God." Meaning, if you struggle with these fits of anger, that is a sign that you potentially are not yet a regenerated believer, a sign that you do not have the Holy Spirit, and it's a sign that you need to repent of sin and turn to Christ. Ephesians 4:26. "Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil." He's saying, "This anger, unrighteous anger, if it's allowed to fester, it gives Satan the opportunity to come in and stick his finger into it, exacerbating that anger, leading to more brokenness in relationships." Ephesians 4:31. "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice." James 1:19-20. "Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God." Angry thoughts, insulting words may never lead ultimately to murder, but in God's eyes, they are. They're tantamount to murder. I John 3:15. "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." Hate is the acorn of murder that, when fertilized and nurtured, can lead potentially to even murder. And the difference is only quantity, not quality. Here, at this point in the sermon, I'm going to ask you some heart-searching questions. And whenever I listen to a sermon and the pastor says, "I'm going to ask you heart-searching questions," I'm like, "Oh no. Please don't. Two X. Two X. Four X." This is important. Have you ever wished someone were dead? Even yourself. Even anger at yourself. Desire like, "I never asked for this." It's like when kids throw this around, "I wish I were never born." Right there, that is anger toward self, and it needs to be repented of. Suicidal thoughts, you are thinking of killing an image bearer of God. Or even angry thoughts with yourself. Or perhaps it's a relative, or someone close to you. Do you ever say anything just to hurt someone because you know this will hurt? Do you ever take secret satisfaction at another person's misfortune? That's usually a sign that there's an anger or hatred toward them. Do you have an enemy? Someone you are out to get? Do you want to make someone pay for what they've done? Do you ever get so angry that you are out of control? And really, the thing you've got to look for, the canary in the coal mine, is words. Words. When you want to speak things out loud about certain people, that's a sign that there's things going on in the heart that need to be repented of. Finally, point three is, love takes the first step. What are we to do with that? We are to repent of that anger, the desire to insult. But then, also, the flip side is, we are to make sure that we don't provoke people to anger. There's two things going on here. Don't be angry with another person, but also don't provoke. And that's what's going on in verse 23. "So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put into prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny." The second part is a metaphor where He's going from it's an argument from lesser to greater. If the severity of human punishment is so great, how much more so is punishment of God? He uses that metaphor. The other metaphor that He uses is one of worship. One legal system, one of worship. And the urgency is so important. Both urgency. If you're going to court, if you're getting sued, you settle so you don't have to pay the ... Especially if you're guilty. And then, with worship, as you're worshiping God, as you're doing the most important thing that we are called to do, there's nothing more important than worshiping God, as you're worshiping God, if you realize that someone has something against you, you are to drop everything, everything and the most important thing, and go and seek reconciliation with the person. Reconciliation isn't guaranteed. As far as it depends on you, you go and you seek reconciliation. Note several things here. It's not a question of whose fault it is. That question is irrelevant. Jesus doesn't single out the guilty party. He insists that both parties take initiative. That's what He's doing here. Each is responsible to make the first move. This is really important. Whenever I do premarital counseling, I tell every couple, "You're going to get in fights. You're going to get in so many fights. Here's what you do. And listen, this is very important." And they're like, "No, we're getting married. We love each other. We are going to be the exception to the rule. We are going to do it." And I'm like, "No, you're going to get in fights." I do that thing, and after a while, I'm like, "They'll come back for me. We'll chat." This is what I say. I say, "Husband, you are the leader. You. The onus is on you. Jesus, when He saw that we had sinned against God, Jesus, He was perfect, but He's the one that comes and seeks reconciliation. But whenever I do that," and my wife loves listening to premarital counseling, because she's like, "Oh, good. You needed that reminder," but when I do that, I'm like, "Oh, next fight, I've got to be the first one to say I'm sorry. But it's her fault. It's always her fault." But then, this text, I found out there's a loophole. Men have to lead. Husbands have to lead, but the responsibility is still on both. Man's got to lead, yeah. You've got to do that. You've got to do it. But when the man isn't leading, when the husband isn't leading, the responsibility is on the wife as well. And I see that from Matthew 5 and Matthew 18. Matthew 5 is, "If someone has something against you." You're not even sure. Did I sin against you? What did I do? You go and you deal with it. Matthew 18 is, "If your brother has sinned against you." On the one hand, you have offended, and I'm going to go deal with it. On the other hand, I have been offended. On both sides, whatever happens, the responsibility is on whom to go and seek reconciliation? On you. That's really, whenever you get in a fight, on whose responsibility is it for reconciliation? Me. I am to initiate reconciliation. That's what's going on. And obviously, the hope is both of you are tremendous Christians and you're filled with the Spirit, and you got in a little fight, and then you meet halfway. That's really the hope. And you hug and kiss, and everything's fine. But usually, it's going to be one or the other. The other thing I just want to mention here is, as we look at this law, as we look at these rules, you have to feel the weight of the impossibility of it, and that's kind of intention. The intention of the law is to be like a mirror where you look into the mirror and you see imperfections, but the law is helpless to fix the imperfections. This is where the law is to bring us to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ paid the price for our sins. He saw that we are not reconciled with God. He comes and He dies on the cross for our sins. Why did that need to happen? That needed to happen because we insulted God. Remember when I said that to insult someone is to so dehumanize them, you wish they were not? Well, every single one of us has, at some moment, at some point, wished that God were not, which is the greatest insult to God. To wish that He were not, to wish that He were not on His throne, to wish that He were not King, to wish that perhaps He didn't create you, to wish that He did not have moral commandments for you. We have insulted God that much. And most people, we live as if God doesn't exist. That's how indifferent we are to God. That's how calloused we are to God. God seeing that, that we insulted Him, God comes, and for the people that insulted Him, for His enemies, He lives a perfect life, Jesus Christ, for people that want to murder God. He goes and He lives a perfect life. And then, on the cross, He actually, physically allows people to murder Him as He bears the weight for our sin. The wrath of God. Why does Jesus Christ do all of this? Why does He say, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?" Why does He do that? To forgive us. To give us mercy. To give us grace. The very moment that we repent of our sin, of our anger, of our insulting people, of our insulting God, that very moment, He forgives us completely. Now, if you are a Christian and you know that I've insulted God, but He forgave me, and while I was still an enemy, He died for me, as you see what's happening on the cross, next time someone wrongs you or sins against you, you look to the cross. Yes, this person has insulted me. Yes, this person has sinned against me. How much more so have I sinned against God? So, you go back to God, you get some more mercy, and then you extend mercy to this person. That's how the Gospel gives us strength to keep going. A few other questions here at the end. If someone has something against you, is it because of something you've said or done, or is it because of something you shouldn't have said or you shouldn't have done? Am I to blame? Have I taken sufficient steps to be reconciled? And if not, am I willing to humble myself and make contact before I take part in Communion today? This is what Jesus has before us. Before we transition to Communion, I said that when God gives us a commandment there's a negative part, do not murder, there's the positive part, love your neighbor as yourself. And here, I'll end with a quote from Martin Luther, who said this, "This commandment is violated, not only when a person actually does evil, but also when he fails to do good to his neighbor, or though he has the opportunity, fails to prevent, protect, and save him from suffering bodily harm or injury. If you send a person away naked when you could clothe them, you've let them freeze to death. If you saw someone suffer hunger and do not feed them, you have let them starve. Likewise, if you see anyone in similar peril, and do not save him, although you know ways and means to do so, you've killed him. It will do you no good to plead that you did not contribute to his death by word and deed, for you have withheld your life from him and robbed him of the service by which his life might have been saved." Heidelberg Catechism. "Is it enough then if we do not kill our neighbor in any such way? The answer is no, for when God condemns envy, hatred, anger, He requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves, to show patience, gentleness, mercy, and friendliness toward him, and to prevent injury to him as much as we can, and also to do good to our enemies." That said, we transition to Holy Communion. Holy Communion is given to us as a reminder of what Christ did on the cross for us. For whom is Holy Communion? Holy Communion, Lord's Supper, is for the repentant. It's for those who have repented of sin and turned to Jesus Christ by grace through faith. If you are not a Christian, if you have not repented of sin, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service. It'll do nothing for you. But if you do repent of your sins today, right now, in prayer to the Lord, you can partake. And then, it's for the repentant Christians, or Christians who have repented of sin. If there's any unrepented sin in your life, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service, or repent of that sin today in prayer. Before we take part, I'm going to give us an opportunity to pray. And pray in particular about people whom, perhaps you have hurt, or people who have hurt you, and we can pray about that and seek reconciliation from the heart. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank You for grace. We thank You that, though when we were enemies, You died on the cross for our sins. We thank You for the mercy that you extend to us, and we pray, Lord, if there's anyone in our life now that comes to mind whom we have hurt, perhaps with words or with deeds, we repent of that sin and we ask that you send reconciliation to that relationship, healing. Or perhaps, Lord, there's people who have hurt us, and we hold a grudge against them. I pray, Lord, take that weight or that grudge from our shoulders, from our hearts, and give us a freedom, freedom to forgive them, since You have forgiven us. Lord Jesus, we thank You that You died physically on a cross, bearing the weight of our sin, and that Your blood was poured out in order to cleanse us from the inside, to gives us new hearts, hearts that beat with love and obedience to You. Bless our time in Holy Communion now. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. If you haven't received one of these cups and you'd like to partake in Communion, just raise your hand and one of the ushers will help you. One in the back here. Two in the back right there. And for the rest, you can take the top little piece of plastic off. Grab the bread, and then pull the second piece of plastic off. "On the night that He was betrayed, Jesus took the bread, and after breaking, He said, 'This is my body, broken for you. Take, eat, and do this in remembrance of Me.' He then proceeded to take the cup, and He said, 'This cup is the cup of new covenant of My blood, which is poured out for the sins of many. Take, drink, and do this in remembrance of Me.'" Jesus, thank You for the grace that You extend to us, and I pray that that grace is not in vain, but as Saint Paul said, he worked harder than all of them. It wasn't him, but the grace of God in me, so we pray that You give us strength to fight the good fight, and to work out our salvation and love our neighbor as ourself by the power of the Holy Spirit. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
Sermon on the Mount Week 2
January 31, 2021 • Matthew 5:13–20
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning, welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan, one of the pastors here at Mosaic. And if you're new or if you're visiting, we'd love to connect with you and do that through the connection card, either in the worship guide or in the app or online. If you fill it out, we'll get in touch with you over the course of the week. With that said, would you please pray with me with the preaching of God's word? Heavenly father, we thank you that you are a God of revelation, that you reveal yourself to us through creation and that you reveal yourself to us through the word of God, the holy scriptures. And the holy scriptures point us to the culmination of world history of the scriptures, which is Jesus Christ. We thank you, Christ, that you're the son of God. You came and you fulfilled the law of God. You, the word of God, fulfilled the word of God. And we thank you for living a perfect life, a righteous life, a holy life as you fulfilled the law. And we thank you for dying on the cross, paying the penalty that we deserve to pay for our law breaking so that when we repent and turn to you by grace, through faith, you extend to us the blessing that you deserved for your law abiding. We thank you Holy Spirit that you are with us today, that you have written these holy scriptures. We pray, reveal them to us and make us a people who live according to your will because we have new hearts that desire to honor you, new hearts that are filled with gratitude for the work that you've given us, new hearts that are filled with love for you. We want to honor you, and we want to worship you with our lives and make us a people who are truly salt and light, who influence the corruption in this world and the darkness, and make us a people who are used by you to extend your kingdom and draw many into the kingdom of God. And we pray all this in Christ's name, amen. So SNL had a little skit last night, it was called What Still Works. That's what it was called, What Still Works. And the correspondent was sitting there and then she had guests come in about what still works and the first one was a guest representing the government. And the guest comes in and well, does the government still work? Clearly two seconds in, no, the government does not work. She leaves. Then the next one was does social media still work? And it was Mark Zuckerberg and the Twitter guy, what's his name? Jack Dorsey. There's a second sermon, the brain's not as fresh. Holy Spirit, please fix that. Jack Dorsey, they come in, or are actors playing them and then obviously social media definitely doesn't work. And then they're like, "Does the stock market still work?" And the majority owner of GameStop shows up and she's like, "Hey, shouldn't your stock represent the value of your company, which is like $17?" He's like, "No, it should be $400." And she's like, "What do you guys do?" They're like, "We sell video games, physical video games." Does anyone buy physical video games? No, they download them all. Are you good at what you do? No, so he leaves. Then Tom Brady walks in, what still works? Tom Brady comes in, played by John Krasinski, love that guy. Tom Brady comes in, sits down and she's like, "Tom Brady, you're going to your 10th Super Bowl." Now, if you don't know me, I'm a big fan of Tom Brady. We had a little falling out when he left New England Patriots. But I clearly learned that my love for Tom Brady is there because I believe in fidelity. And by the way, Tom Brady won his first Super Bowl when I was a freshman in college. So that tells you something. So he comes and she's like, "Tom Brady, you clearly still work, what still works? You work, Tom Brady works." And so he gets into that whole thing. And as she did that, that's kind of beside... the reason why I bring that up is because I remember listening to the interview of Tom Brady because I'm fascinated with really successful people and learning about their mindset. And in one interview they asked him, "Why are you so good when there's two minutes left in the game, moments of greatest pressure, why do you show up?" And you know what he said? He said, "I remind myself of who I am." He said, "I tell myself, you are Tom Brady, be who you are, do what you do." And that mindset is so powerful in particular for the Christian life. And this is what Jesus Christ does in this section of the Sermon on the Mount. We're in a series in the Sermon on the Mount that we are going through till Easter. And this is the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever preached, Jesus Christ. And so in the first section in the beatitudes, in the first four of the beatitudes, he showed us how to enter the kingdom of God through repentance, poverty of spirit, mourning over sin, growing in weakness, hungering and thirsting for righteousness and then he showed us how we grow as disciples. But here, this section is crucial because he here gives us an identity. He says, this is who you are, you are salt and light. And in the rest of the series, the rest of the sermon, he's going to show us how that looks like practically. Here he speaks our identity over us, you are salt and light. And why is this important? It's important because he here is telling us that we have a job, this is our job description, and our job description is to influence the world around us. We are salt, meaning we are thrown into social decay around us and we need to fight the putrefying effect of sin on our society. The world is prevailing in darkness and we, as Christians are called to illuminate society showing a better way. And I say that because a lot of Christians in particular, when they move to Boston, they realize that they are one of the only Christians in whatever sphere they're in. We have a temptation to back off, we have a temptation to say, you know what? I'm just going to focus to make sure I don't lose my saltiness, my saltness. I'm just going to focus on myself, on my walk, on my private relationship with Jesus so my light isn't snuffed out. And this mindset of just mere survival is not what God calls us to. In particular, in this place, God has called you here to Boston, Massachusetts. This is a place of particular darkness, spiritually speaking, particular societal decay and we have a job to do, and that's what the text is all about. So would you look at the text with me? This is Matthew 5:13 through 20, Matthew 5:13 through 20. You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven. Do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets, I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them, will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never or enter the kingdom of God. This is the reading of God's holy, inherent, infallible, authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to bring up our time, talking about good workers, salt and light, great worker, that's the law fulfilled and three good work, law and lifestyle. First of all, good workers, salt and light. Jesus calls his disciples to himself through repentance, they repent. He says, "Follow me. I will make you fishers of men." They're now the disciples of Jesus Christ and he gives them an identity, marching orders, if you will, that's verse 13. You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall saltiness be restored? It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. What does it mean to be salt? It's not to be confused with being salty like in New England. There are a lot of people, we're all salty in New England, just a little irritable, just a little angry, just mad at something all the time, salty. We had fresh snow this week, it was wonderful. My girl, they love snow, they love it. We're out in the park. After I finished my day where I took them to the park, the Rose Garden here off of St. Paul, I got my youngest in the sled. I'm running around with her. She is having a ball, the time of her life, obviously screaming because she's a Vezikov girl, they're loud. A lady comes, crosses the street, comes up to the fence, "Excuse me, sir. Could you tell your kids to keep it down? I'm trying to have a nice dinner." I did not know her name, but we all know her name. Then she says, "I can call the cops on you because you're in the park after dusk." At this moment, my wife starts pulling me away. Why? Because she knows that my natural reaction to saltiness is to respond with saltiness, not saltness. Jesus is saying, he's not saying you're the saltiness of the earth, he's saying you're the salt, you are salt. What does it mean that you are salt? Well, salt had two main purposes in the ancient times, flavor, make things taste good, but also more importantly preservation. They didn't have refrigeration, that was only meant to be a hundred years ago. They canned foods, that was about 200 years ago. So preservation, to keep specifically meat from rotting. So the disciples of Jesus Christ, Christians are to have a preservative effect on culture, to keep culture from rotting. Yes, we are to delight culture. There needs to be a flavor that's different about us that draws people to us in the same way that people were delighted by Jesus. And then Jesus, that's the love, but then Jesus will speak truth, grace truth. And the truth was to keep the society from rotting. Here he says that salt can lose its salinity if it loses its taste. Pure salt can't lose its salinity if it's chemically stable. But the salt in Judea, Galilee, it wasn't pure. The way that they derived or harvested salt was to take water from the Dead Sea and they will put in a pit and let it evaporate and then they would take the salt out of it. And because it took so much work to get salt, salt was very valuable, even used as a medium of exchange. We kind of take salt for granted. But Jesus here says, this is who you are, you're salt. He also says you are the light of the world. Verse 14, a city set on a hill cannot be hidden nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand and it gives light to all in the house. Jerusalem was perched on Mount Zion, Rome was built on seven hills, which cities he's talking about, we're not sure. But the best cities were always high up for security purposes. And when people are living in the city, there's lights and that light emanates in the same way with in a house, he's saying that you light a lamp and you don't hide it, you don't put it in a basket or under a bowl. Why? What's the point of light? It's to illuminate, it's to make visible, it's to shine into darkness. And certain lights also provide growth. Sun, sunlight can tan skin and stimulates the formation of vitamin D and sets biological rhythm. It's used in treatment of disease and depression. It energizes, cheers, reflects, brightens, it disinfects. And it's fast, we talk about the speed of light. The point here is both are indispensable. We need salt and we need light. And the rest of the sermon, Jesus explains how to be salt and how to be light. Here, he's speaking identity to his disciples, he's speaking a powerful word of identity over them. He's not saying you should be salt, or you should be light. Think this is who you are. It's a powerful word of identity. And by the way, this is an incredible parenting hack if you're a parent, for all the parents in the room. And not even... this is like a human hat, you got to speak identity over the people... I do it with my kids all the time. My youngest, she's three. She's one of the hardest, she was the hardest. But this is what I speak over her, "Milana, you are the most obedient girl. You are my most obedient daughter. You are so obedient. You will listen to everything your dad says." And I speak it into it, it's kind of like brainwashing or programming, but everything else, brainwashing or programming, so I want to do the good thing. That's what parenting is, you actually got to teach your kids stuff. And this is how God... where did I learn that lesson? This is how God actually, he tells us to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Why? By speaking truth. This is who you are, now be who you are. And what's fascinating is if you study languages, some languages like English or German, word order is important. Other languages like Russian, word order isn't important. That's why Germans are very organized and meticulous and they care about details. And Russians are like, "Man, whatever goes." And language, it was kind of like it's fluid. Like in English, you can't... it's I love you, it's not love I you or you I love, that's weird. In Russian, you can go "ya lyublyu vas", "kogo ya lyublyu", "lyublyu ya tebya". Greek is like that as well. And the way it's so fluid and the way that you emphasize stuff in written Greek is you put it first. And here he says in verse 13 and verse 14, you, you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world. That's who you are. It's not the Pharisees, it's not the scribes, it's not people of other religions, it's not politicians. That's how he changes is the world ultimately, it's you Christians. Christians change the world, be who you are. Light can't but illuminate, salt can't but preserve and season. He doesn't say, bring salt with you, bring light with you. He says, this is who you are, and wherever you go, you are salt and light. You live a life that looks different, that tastes different and don't lose your savor, don't lose your difference. Because as soon as you lose your difference, you lose your influence. We influence because we're different. Salt is not meat, that's why it's so effective. Light is not darkness. A lot of churches today have absolutely zero influence on the world because they are the world, they have no salt, they have no light. And what's Jesus saying here? He's saying the world is decaying and it's dark. There's corruption in the world, there's rot in the world and there's a deep darkness that you can cut through with a knife. And here I add this whole section written out by statistics about darkness and corruption, perversion, sexually in our culture people just addicted, absolutely addicted to sexual pleasure and others making so much money off of it. Obviously they want us addicted, darkness, financial darkness and corruption, political darkness and corruption. It's all around us. And God says, you are salt and you are light. And the answer to the rot and rotting of the human light, the darkness is be who you are. That's his answer. Sometimes people come to me like, "There is so much darkness in the world, what do we do, how can we fight this?" And Jesus answers be who you are, be salt and be light, be distinct, think different, act different, dream different live different. Our difference from the world gives us influence in the world. When people live... so he talks about salt and light and then afterwards in a sermon, he gives us practical examples in the most important areas of our life, how we can be different. And then in this context, he says, you are a city set on a hill. And what he's saying is you are a city within a city, you're a people within a people, you're a kingdom within a kingdom. Which is just tricky because we live here, we navigate with people around us and some people around us are in the kingdom of God and some people are not. We're resonant aliens, we're citizens of the kingdom of heaven, but we're still here as ambassadors, as change agents. And what we do is by living the life that he calls us to live, we influence the people around us as a city set on a hill. And what do we do? We need to let our light shine, this is Matthew 5:16. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven. So how do we bring salt? How do we bring light into the world? In the same way Jesus did. What did Jesus do? He, through the incarnation, came and lived. He lived a certain life, he spoke truth, but he also lived a certain life. That's how we shine the light. That's how we attract attention to the glory of God, through our good works. Now here, I need to pause because a lot of people think when they hear good works, they hear good deeds like a one-off every once in a while. Like if you're at Dunkin' Donuts and you're like, "Oh, I'm going to do a good deed. I'm going to pay for the people behind." That pay it forward. Or, "I'm going to go work at a soup kitchen, I'm going to do something good, I'm going to do a good deed." That's not what he's talking about. Because the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, he doesn't say, here's what the good deeds look like, give someone money, et cetera. The rest of the Sermon on the Mount is about a lifestyle, about a life you live. God doesn't need your little one-offs to pay him off and get them off your back. He said, no, you're part of the kingdom. You are a servant of God. You're an ambassador of the king. You are a change agent. I want you to live a certain way. As a lifestyle, this is your good works, this is the way you shine the light of Christ. John 8:12, Jesus himself is the light. Jesus spoke to them saying, "I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." This is what it means to follow Jesus. You will follow me, you will walk with me and you will walk in the light. And the purpose is to attract attention to God, not to parade our own virtue or virtue signal. Titus 2:10, so that in everything, they may adorn, dress up the doctrine of God, our savior. The point is not for us to be praised for our life and our good works, but the point is to create legitimacy to our words. When I speak of words of Christ, people believe them because they see my lifestyle. I've created a plausibility structure with my life. That's what Jesus is calling us to. Here Jesus pauses from the good workers and we get to the greater worker. He brings it in gospel of the law fulfilled. So you are salt and light, we do that through your lifestyle. But before I tell you that you must live like that, I want you to know that you must live like that because you are part of the kingdom, and you're part of the kingdom because I fulfilled the law. We are saved. We're in the kingdom, not because of our righteousness, but because of his. We are not accepted because we were righteous, we are accepted because he is righteous and we repented of our sin and righteousness. So here he gives us the gospel, which then just is the motivation for our good works. So the greater worker, law fulfilled, Jesus Christ came to work. Verse 17, do not think that I've come to abolish the law over the prophets. I haven't come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. Jesus Christ came to work. Jesus Christ was the greatest worker who ever lived. And by work, I mean fulfilling the will of God. The disciples would come to him and say, "Jesus it's time to eat." And he says, "I have food that you do not know of, it's to do the work of God. While it's still day, I'm going to work" Jesus' work. What's fascinating is Caleb read the passage in Matthew 11:20 through 30 where it says the words of Christ, come on to me all who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest, rest for your souls and take up my yoke upon you, take my yoke upon you. It's so fascinating. Yoke is two animals harnessed, harnessed for what? To plow a field. So Jesus is talking about rest in the context of work. Come, I will give you rest and I'm going to give you a job because he is yoked to do the will of God. And we find rest for our souls when we're working with God, doing the work of God. And that's what Jesus came to do, to fulfill the law and the prophets, not to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. By law and the prophets, he's talking about all of the Hebrew scriptures. This is how the religious leaders of the day talked about the Hebrew scriptures. The legalistic Pharisees and scribes accused Jesus, because Jesus talked about grace and forgiveness, they accused Jesus of abolishing the law. And Jesus here is saying, "I didn't come to abolish, I came to fulfill." What does that mean? What does that mean? Because it doesn't say obey, he doesn't say, I've come to obey. He doesn't say, I've come to keep. He says, I've come to fulfill. It includes obey and keep, but it's more than that. Fulfill means more than just obey and keep. So what does God mean, what does Christ mean by saying I fulfill? Because this is important and you need to have a theology of grace and law, especially in the new testament, because a lot of Christians do not. A lot of Christians believe, oh, I'm saved by grace through faith, Jesus forgives me of my sins, I can live any way I want, come back to him anytime I need forgiveness and continue the cycle and then I end up at heaven. That's a false, false theology of law. Christ is king of the law, obviously because he's king. And he demonstrates there's a certain sovereignty over the law in the old testament. For example, on some occasions, he cancels the law from the old testament concerning the clean and unclean foods. And this is important because a lot of people who reject an inerrancy of scripture, they say, "Well, Christians are inconsistent because they say homosexuality is wrong, that's from the law of God, but they eat shrimp and pork, which isn't allowed in the old testament." And they just combine all of the laws into one category of it's all law. Well, what every Christian needs to know is there're three kinds of laws in the old testament. There's the civil law, the civil code given to Israel as a nation state under God. Are we Israel as a nation state under God? No. So that law does not apply to us. And the second part of the law is the ceremonial law which had to do with the dietary codes and also included the sacrificial laws given to us and all of that, the sacrificial laws and the diet, that all was typology pointing to Christ, and Christ fulfills that law. They pointed to Christ, like the Passover lamb. If you had the blood of the Passover lamb over your doorpost, the angel of death passed over your household. Well, that was a sign of Jesus Christ, the lamb of God who died on the cross for our sin. And if we are in him by grace through faith, then condemnation passes over us. There is no condemnation who is in him. So Jesus fulfills, he fulfills that part of the law. That's what it means, I came to fulfill it, I came to die as a sacrificial lamb. And then the third part of law is the moral code, the 10 commandments. And every single one of the 10 commandments is still enforced for Christians because every single one of them is repeated in the new testament except for the fourth commandment about keeping the Sabbath because Jesus Christ is our Sabbath. The principle of Sabbath is there and we are to celebrate the Sabbath and keep it, but we do that on Sundays as Christians because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So that part of the law, Jesus fulfills in that he perfectly obeyed it. And Jesus obeyed that law perfectly, a moral code, the 10 commandments, he fulfilled it perfectly because we could not and we would not. And then he goes to a cross to die as a penalty for our sins so that he could offer to us when we repent of our sins, the righteousness that he earned, the blessing that he earned for law keeping and he took upon himself the curse that we deserve for our law breaking. First Corinthians 7:9, for neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. So Jesus came to fulfill the prophecy and the ceremonial law and to fulfill the 10 commandments because we did not, could not. And then Matthew 5:18 for truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. What's Jesus' view here of the Hebrew scripture? He believes it's God's word. What's fascinating here is the word truly, in the King James Version, it's the word verily. And Jesus often would say, verily, verily, I say unto you and people are like, "What's he doing?" In the Greek it's the word amḗn, amen. And I remember doing a deep dive in seminary study, why did Jesus Christ put amen at the beginning of his teachings, at the beginning of his sentence, not at the end? Did anyone else do that of the teachers of the age? No. Jesus was the only one who would speak this way. And he speaks like this often. In Matthew, this occurs 31 times, in John it's 25 times. Why is that important? Because the prophets in the old testament, they came and they said, thus, saith the Lord, this is what God says. Jesus Christ doesn't come saying, "This is what God says." He comes what? I say. Truly, I say. What's going on? He is God. And what does God believe about the Hebrew scriptures? That not one iota, not one dot, not one of the smallest letter, not one of the smallest marks of all the holy scripture will ever pass away, meaning it's eternal. God's word is eternal. Even when the world will come to an end, the holy scriptures will not, they're permanent. That's why at Mosaic we believe that the holy scriptures are God's word, inherent, infallible, authoritative. We love God's word because Jesus loved God's word. And then Jesus believed that about the old testament and then Jesus sends us the Holy Spirit that inspires the writers of the new testament to give us the holy scriptures. So because of what Jesus did on the cross, when we believe in him and repent of our sins, we enter the kingdom of God. And when we enter the kingdom of God, now he gives us a work to do, he gives us a new identity, you're salt and light, and then he tells us what that means, and that's point three, good work, law and lifestyle. So be who you are. It's not just about one off. Okay, I'm going to influence someone here or I'm going to shine a little light on this conversation. No, it's about a lifestyle. And that lifestyle is to keep the commandments, that's God's will for our life. Matthew 5:19, Jesus says whoever relaxes, therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. First of all, I want to point out there's levels in the kingdom of God, levels of obedience, levels of usefulness, levels of influence. There's great and greater, and then there's lesser. And that doesn't feel good to our egalitarian sensibilities, but it's just the case that if you are not an obedient Christian, you're not very useful. And God says, "Yeah, okay, you're not a useful servant." It's just like with kids, I was meditating on this. You can't love one kid more than another, or at least you can't say it out loud. So I don't rank them in that, but I do rank them in obedience. And I know who the easiest one is and who the hardest this one is. And here's what I don't want you to get from this. I don't want you to read this text and say, "Oh, I can be disobedient and still remain in the kingdom of God." Because you can get that from here. You're still in the kingdom of God, but you got to balance that out with other scriptures like Hebrews 12, where God is a good father and when his kids are disobedient, he disciplines them. And if you're just obedient, you don't get less of the attention of God, the father, you get more, but the attention is the attention of discipline. That's the first thing I want to point out here. The second thing I want to point out is that there are weightier matters in the law and less weightier matters in the law. The commandments concerning the care... in the old testament, the commandments concerning care of people and of birds. And Jesus says you are more important than the birds. In verse 20, for I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. So he just talked about disciples who are obedient, they're greater, disobedient, they're lesser. And then he talks about the Pharisees, that your righteousness needs to be more than the Pharisees who are not in the kingdom. So there's three categories here. There's obedient people in the kingdom, disobedient people in the kingdom and the Pharisees who aren't even in the kingdom. What's going on here? Why aren't the Pharisees in the kingdom? The Pharisees were the religious elites and the Pharisees believed that the way into the kingdom of God was to earn it, was to be obedient to God's law. So this is what they did. They were meticulous observers of the law's requirements, in particular, of the letter of the law. They simply followed the regulations governing outward behavior. They poured over the Pentateuch, which is the first five books of the Bible and they found 613 commandments, 248 positive, do this, and then 365 negative, don't do this. And they took those commandments, they dissected them without end and they then create collateral regulations, or they took the commandments and they built a fence around it with their own regulations. And this is what the Mishnah is, the compilation of these unending regulations. And they focused on the superficial parts of the law, the easy stuff to fulfill. So for example, with the tithe, God commanded the tithe. They said, "Okay, we'll tithe." And they tithe so scrupulously that Jesus says, "You tithe of your till and your cumin and of your spice rack, but you forgot the foundational weighty matters of the law is faithfulness, love and mercy." So they were fulfilling the letter of law, not the heart of the law, because their heart wasn't with God. They weren't in the kingdom because they did not have a heart of flesh, they had a heart of stone. And this is what Jesus says. He's saying you cannot enter the kingdom of God through your own work. No matter how righteous you are, you become a child of God, you become a citizen of the kingdom by repenting of your sin. And the moment that you repent of your sin, God forgive me for my law breaking, God forgive me for not doing your will, God forgive me for choosing sin over you, God forgive me, when you repent, God gives you a new heart, a heart of flesh. So even if as a baby Christian or when you're unhealthy spiritually, when you are being disobedient to God, you still have that heart and you're still in the kingdom. And what happens is even those people, God continues to work on you and fills you with the Holy Spirit. And as you do, as you grow in that, you begin to grow into faithless. In Matthew 5:16 he says, in the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven. It's your father, God's your father. God adopts you into his family. And he will work on our obedience. And the more obedient we are, the better we make our father look, and more attention we attract to him. First Peter 2:11 and 12, beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passion of the flesh which wage war against your sin. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. We are to attract... And this is all to say, why does Jesus do all of this before he gives us all of the rest of the teaching? What he is saying is you can't earn your salvation by keeping the law. You can only be given salvation by trusting in Jesus Christ, but then after you do the law is still in place. And the law is in place to guide our lifestyle, to show us how to be who we are, how to be salt and light. This is very important because this is what the Pharisee said and this was a lot of people said to that. The Pharisee said, "No, no, no. You can't just be saved by grace through faith. You can't just be saved by repenting of sin because then people won't keep the commandments." That's what a lot of people say today. You can't just say that you're saved by repentance and faith. Because Christians, they won't keep the commandments. And Jesus is saying, no, you don't understand what it means to be a Christian. What it means to be a Christian is to become a new creation, to be a child of God, to become a citizen of the kingdom where you can't but be who you are, which is salt and light. So that's what happened there. And then so the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us what the transformed life looks like. Jesus tells us what it means to be salt and light. And what he means is that new heart that God gave you, you live that out. So with the commandments, you live out the heart of the commandment, the spirit of the commandment, not just the letter. So for example, he starts with the commandment, you've heard it was said, don't kill anybody. But I say to you, whoever, whoever even attacks a person with their tongue, whoever hates a person, I'm telling you already killed that person because you killed their humanity. Now you see the weight of this. And the next one that you've heard that it was said, thou shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, whoever looks upon a woman or upon another person with lust for them in your heart, you've already transgressed that commandment, you've committed adultery. So as we see that, we're like, "Ah, that's the life we're supposed to live. But ah, I've transgressed this so many times." At the same time, the Sermon on the Mount shows us the way of Jesus and shows us our need for Jesus. Jesus, I can't live like this apart from you, please forgive me. He forgives us, fills us with the spirit and gives us power to live like this. That's the cycle. He talks about marriage and divorce, that God's will for marriage is one man, one woman, one covenant and one lifetime. And it's not God's will for a divorce to happen. He talks about monogamy fidelity. He talks about our words, don't swear by anything. You've heard that it was said do not bear false witness. I say to you speak, yes as your yes, no and no. Speak as if you're always under oath. That's what God cares about truth. He talks about retaliation and loving your enemies. If someone strikes you, turn the other cheek, and we'll talk about that. He talks about generosity and mercy ministry. Don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing so that you're not virtue signaling what a good person I am. You do it to help the person because God has helped you. God's given you generosity, you give generosity to others. He talks about prayer and fasting. And we do it not so people think we're righteous, we do it because we love our father and we want to have a conversation where we desire God more than anything and more than even food. He talks about possessions, not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, but in heaven. Where's your main portfolio, where's your real wealth? It's in heaven, now, it's in ministry. So we see everything's upside down, this is the upside down kingdom. Anxiety teaches us, don't worry in its command. There's good anxiety where we worry about the kingdom of God and seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness instead of worrying about food and clothing, et cetera. This is what he means by be who you are. He saves us, we're in the kingdom, we are salt and light. This is what it means to be salt and light, be who you are. Acts 1:8, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Sumeria and to the end of the year. God fills us with the Holy Spirit as Christians and we now are his witnesses. So be who you are. And we witness the truth, the voracity of God by living it out with our own life. People do not see God, they see God through us. They don't see the light of God, they see the light of God through us. So the Sermon on the Mount tells us, put your life where your mouth... put your money where your mouth is, put your life where your mouth is. Are you a Christian, are you're a follower of God? Then be who you are. Benjamin Franklin used to go to the big rallies of George Whitfield even in Boston. In Boston Common, George Whitfield had 30,000 people that he was preaching to. And Ben Franklin would show up and people would ask him, "Ben Franklin, are you a Christian? Do you believe what George Whitfield is saying?" He says, "I don't come because I believe what he's saying, I come because I believe that he believes what he's saying. He speaks with such conviction, he believes what he's saying." Christians, do you believe this? If so, be who you are. And it all starts with loving the law of God just like Jesus loved the law of God. Psalm 119:97, oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. C.S. Lewis says the order of the divine mind embodied in the divine law is beautiful. What should a man do but try to reproduce it so far as possible in his daily life. Why do we love the law of God? Jesus did, but it's also the law, his word is a reflection of himself. We love him, we love it. And it shows us how to be holy as he is holy and to love God is to be like him. Today or this week, in conclusion, when you have some steak, you take the salt shaker and you pour salt onto the steak or Brussels sprouts or together, those two together, a match made in heaven, and you pour salt on it, I want you to be reminded of the fact that's who you are. And you have the light on, obviously no one eats delicious steak in the dark. You have the light on, be reminded that you are the light of the world. We're not pepper, we're not sugar, we are salt called to preserve and fend off decay, called to heal and soothe, called to bring flavor, enhance other flavors. And we're light, so let us walk in the light as children of the light, showing the world a better way, the only way, the way of Jesus Christ, the way of the gospel. Let us pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for the reminder that you have given us a new identity, that we are children of God, we are servants of the king, we are ambassadors of God, ministers of reconciliation, and we're also change agents called to influence the corruption, decay, the darkness of this world by living out our identity according to your holy scriptures. And Jesus, we thank you for this incredible sermon. We thank you that you have come to fulfill the law, not to abolish it, and you call us to live according to your word, in a manner worthy of the gospel. I pray that you give us strength to do that. And I pray Lord that through us, through each member of this church, through each listener of this word, I pray you continue to use us to influence this dark and decaying area and transfer many into the kingdom of light, the kingdom of your beloved son, Jesus Christ in whose name we pray. Amen.
Sermon on the Mount Week 1
January 24, 2021 • Matthew 5:1–12
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you would like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning and welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan, one of the pastors here at Mosaic and if you're new or visiting, welcome. We're so glad you're here and we'd love to connect with you. We do that through the connection card, either in the worship guide or you can get it online or in the app. Fill it out, we'll get in touch with you over the course of the week. With that said, would you please pray with me of the preaching of God's word. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are God and that you are in control. You're absolutely sovereign. There is not one detail in the history of the universe that is not under your control. We thank you for that. We thank you, Jesus, that you are king. You are king of kings and you are lord of lords. We thank you, Holy Spirit, that it is through you by your power that, God, you reign. Lord, we thank you that you are in control and we thank you for the blessing it is to live in this country. We do pray for this country. We thank you for the peaceful transition of power and we do pray for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. We pray for them because you told us to pray for our rulers and our authorities. We pray that you infuse them with your wisdom. We pray that they are agents of good to promote good and to curb evil and not vice versa. We pray that you give them your super imposing sovereign, holy spirit as you guide them. Holy Spirit, in the scriptures, you tell us that the hearts of kings and rulers and those in authority are like water in your hands. I pray, guide them to do your will. I pray, Lord, that remind us that our citizenship, our greatest citizenship, isn't here, it's not in the United States, it's in heaven, that we are citizens of a greater kingdom, serving a greater king. And Lord, Jesus, you are king over us and I pray that you grow our submission to you, not a submission that comes through drudgery, but a submission that comes through delight because we love you and thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross for our sins, to save us from our sins. Bless our time. The holy scripture is right now. We pray this in Christ's holy name. Amen. We, today, are starting a brand new sermon series through the Sermon on the Mount, the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher to have ever preached, Jesus Christ. One of the unfortunate lapses in the American church is that most of our theology as Christians is taught us in Sunday School and then past Sunday School, past graduation, we don't really read our own Bibles, we don't really study theology and the language that we are given in Sunday School is language that we continue to use when we think of God. And one of the most unfortunate phrases is, let Jesus into your heart. Very unfortunate phrase. By the way, in the Russian church, there is no such thing because they read the Bible. No. Jesus not once says to anybody, individuals, please let me into your heart. Please. Pretty please. One time in the Book of Revelation, Jesus is standing outside knocking, outside of what, a person's heart? No. Outside of a church. Jesus is standing outside of a church that forgot Jesus. They left Jesus outside. They started flying different flags, not the flag of Jesus. Jesus never says, "Hey, please let me into your heart so I can be your personal savior." He never does that. How does Jesus call people to salvation? We learned that last week. What does he say? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent because the king is here. Jesus never said, please let me into your heart. Instead, Jesus said, "Enter into my kingdom." And you do that through repentance. Christianity is actually life of submission to the king fueled by gratitude. God, you my great king died for me. You saved me. We're fueled by gratitude and love for the king. That's how Jesus talks about entering into a relationship with him, by entering into a kingdom where, yes, it is a realm, but it's also under the reign of Jesus. That's how Jesus talked to Nicodemus. Nicodemus said, how can I get to heaven? How can I have eternal life? Jesus said, "Unless you are born again, you can't see the kingdom or you can't enter the kingdom." Born again and repentance, that happens together. Jesus is a super natural king. When you become a Christian, when you repent, you enter into his reign and in that reign is a new administration. Just like with the new president, we have a new administration. New policies. 17 new executives orders. That's what happens when you become a Christian. Sermon on the Mount, Jesus issuing his executive orders. And he doesn't have to go through Congress or the Senate, because the king of God is not a democracy. We don't vote. He's the king, he tells us what to do. That's what the Sermon on the Mount is all about. Today, we're going to look at the beatitude. It's called the beatitudes because it's from the Latin, beatus, it means blessing. We're going to look at the blessings of what it means to be in the kingdom of God. Here he gives us characteristics of a Christian and we are to look at these characteristics and these traits and say, "Am I growing in these?" They are kind of like Paul's nine fruits of the spirit in Galatians. "Am I producing the fruits of the spirit by the power of the spirit?" Today, we're looking at the Sermon on the Mount. We're in Matthew 5:1-12. Matthew 5:1-12 where Jesus gives us the introduction of what it means to be a citizen of the kingdom of God. Would you look at the text with me? Matthew 5:1-12. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called, sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in Heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." This is the reading of God's holy and errant infallible, authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time. We look at the blessing of citizenship. We'll look at entering the kingdom and then grow as a citizen of the kingdom of God, blessing of citizenship. If you don't know, I wasn't born here, I was born in the Soviet Union. When my parents immigrated here in 1989, they had to get naturalized as citizens, five years in the whole process, and they kind of forgot to file the paperwork for me. When I wanted to travel and get a passport, when I was out of high school, I had to apply for citizenship of this country. I had to go through the naturalization process. I had to take the test. I had to learn about the rules. I had to learn about some of the facts. How many stars are on the flag? 50. How many stripes? How many stripes, citizens? 13. 13. Very good. Representing what? The colonies. Very good, you are. You had to go through a process to become a citizen. In the same way, Jesus, here first, before he talks about becoming a citizen, he gives us the benefits of being a citizen of the kingdom of God. And the benefits are the blessings. He gives us the blessings. Here it's blessedness. In Aramaic and Hebrew, this is an exclamation. It's not just stating a fact, it's exclamation that this is what it means to live the blessed life, like in Psalm 1:1. Asherē this is the same exclamation is used. Blessed is the manner. Oh, the blessedness of a person, of a man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of scoffers. They are not simply statements, they are exclamations. Exclamations because they are shocking in that they are full of such rich theology and also the blessedness of the presence of God. In the Greek, blessed is makarius. Cyprus was called the island of makarius. The island of God-like joy, they talked about it. It's an island that was lovely, it's rich, it's fertile. People that lived there, lived a perfectly happy life. That's the same word that Jesus used here, makarius. It's fortune, it's joy, it's gladness. It's much deeper than just happiness. It's untouchable. It's self-contained. It's independent of circumstances unlike the very flimsy American English word, happy. The root is hap, which means chance, like happenstance. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about something much deeper. He's talking about that for which everybody is pursuing, this deep joy, gladness, blessedness. One of my favorite quotes about happiness comes from Blaise Pascal, the great 17th century Frenchman of letter, mathematician, philosopher. He was also Christian. And in his ponce, he writes, all man, all people seek happiness. This is without exception, whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end, the cause of some going to war and others avoiding it. It is the same desire in both attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves. Seeking happiness, seeking this blessedness. We don't even know what this is, but we seek it. We use the word happiness, it's deeper than that. Happiness is dependent on changes and chances. Whatever life gives, life can take away. Blessedness is untouchable, it's unassailable, because it's grounded in something immutable. Happiness is emotional, it's mental, it's subjective. Blessedness is a condition of one's life. It's objective. Happiness is about getting to a position in life. If I get the job, if I get the career, if I have enough money, if I have the house, if I have the spouse. If I have the lifestyle, that's happiness. It's a position of life and blessedness is a lot deeper. It's not a position of life, it's a posture of heart, which then gives us a disposition toward life that allows us to handle whatever comes. And that's why Jesus talks about joy so often, a joy that no one will take away. John 16:22. Also, you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you. Blessedness isn't a state of mind, it's a state of soul. If you get your soul in this place of blessedness, no matter what happens in your life, you can get through it. You have the spiritual resources to get through it. You can have joy in the midst of pain. Joy which sorrow lost, pain, grief, or powerless to touch. Nothing in life or death can take it away. Happiness is grounded in circumstances, blessedness is grounded in the source of blessing, which is God. The greatest blessing is God and growing in blessedness is growing in proximity to God, getting closer to God, knowing God. Being rooted in God, who is immutable therefore your joy is immutable. You know immutable means, unchangeable, therefore your joy is unchangeable, no one can take it away. This is the greatest thing that God offers us. It's not just forgiveness of sins and now you get out of hell free card. No, the greatest thing that God offers us, is himself and we get him by having our sins forgiven and then also growing in virtue and that's what the Sermon on the Mount is, how we can grow in virtue, grow in holiness, grow in proximity to God. The formula that we have here in the beatitudes is two parts. You've got condition, blessed are the poor in spirit and then you have the result, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. What a disciple is and what he obtains. And the first part, it's shocking because it seems so negative, it seems like there is a cost, that there's a sacrifice, that there's loss, and that's true. There is loss when you become a Christian. There is things you've got to deny to get something much greater and it is worth it. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Are you in the kingdom of Heaven? If not, you can have it. You can enter the kingdom of Heaven today, right now. Theirs is not, theirs will be. It's not future, this is present. You can have the kingdom of God now. How? How do I get it? How do I get it? You've got to enter the kingdom. How do I enter the kingdom? That's the first four beatitudes. The first four beatitudes are how you enter the kingdom and you've got to grow in them as you enter the kingdom. And then the next four are what you need to grow in as you're in the kingdom. The first four is enter the kingdom. How? By being poor in spirit. By mourning, by growing in meekness and by hungering and thirsting in righteousness. We saw in verse three. Verse three. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. What's he talking about? He's talking about realizing that you, in and of yourself, are spiritually bankrupt. Zero. Last week I paid off my credit card bill. I never carry a balance on my credit card. I only do it because I get the two percent cash back. Financial wisdom for a different day. But i paid my credit card balance with the wrong account. I've got two accounts. My interest rates were higher for that one, but whatever. I paid with the wrong account and my balance, I went to look at my balance and it was negative. I've never even seen that. I've never seen a negative balance and I was immediately crestfallen. My heart sunk to my heels. I am bankrupt. That's what it felt like. Spiritually, this is what Jesus is talking about. You realize your poverty of spirit. I have problems beyond my ... I can't help myself, I can't save myself, I can't transform myself. I'm poor in spirit. My greatest problem isn't political, it's not financial. It's not psychological, it's not mental. It's spiritual, that's my greatest problem. I'm absolutely destitute. I'm a beggar before God. I'm poverty-strickened, bereft of any spiritual resources so I can only rely on the Lord, not myself. It's a poverty of spirit. It's not weakness of spirit. It's not a weakness of spirit. You actually have to be strong, spiritually, to admit your poverty of spirit. I have nothing apart from God. It's not a material poverty. The Lord does elsewhere say that for those who are materially wealthy, rich, they have a greater difficulty admitting their spiritual poorness, but that's what becoming a Christian, that's where it starts. Where you come before God and you say, "God, I'm spiritually bankrupt. My account is negative. I have debts that I cannot pay off myself. Poverty of spirit." And that's how you get into the kingdom. In the 80s when Harvard University invited Mother Teresa to give a commencement address, she was shocked and she took issue with the gracious invitation, with the wording in the invitation to describe her. This is what Harvard wrote about her. "The most famous person in one of the world's most poorest nations to address the world's richest nation." That's how they welcome people to a commencement. And Mother Teresa said, "No, India is not a poor nation. India is a very rich nation. She has a wealth of riches, true spiritual riches. America is not a rich nation. She's a poor nation. In fact, a desperately poor nation. She slaughters her own unborn children." Poverty of spirit, personally, and also as a nation. We recognize. That's what repentance is when we come before God and, "God, I can't pay off my debts. I need someone else to do that." That's where Jesus begins. God, I did not fulfill your law. I did not do what you called me to do. I have not done the things you called me to do and I've done things that you've told me not to do. Jesus begins with repentance in the Sermon on the Mount because the Sermon on the Mount is the reissuing of God's law. That's why he's on the mount, like Moses. Moses goes and gets the law, the decalogue, the 10 commandments from God. This is the moral law that God has for everybody, a law that's written on our hearts. Jesus, before he goes into every single one of these laws, this is how you're supposed to live as a human being, but you haven't, therefore you need to repent, acknowledge that you're poor in spirit. Now you enter the kingdom and because of the power of the Holy Spirit, you can now live the way that we ought to live. Here, I just want to set up, the Sermon on the Mount, it's laws, it's commandments that go actually deeper, they go to the heart of the commandments, of the 10 commandments. And here, I just want to speak a few things about the law. God gave his law for three reasons. God gave his law for three reasons. Number one, to restrain sinfulness of mankind. Every single one of us, we are born sinners. We have a sinful flesh and God gives us the law, the 10 commandments, writes it in holy scripture and writes it on our hearts to restrain the sinfulness of humanity, to suppress the rebellion of human hearts, to keep us in bounds as humans. The second purpose of the laws is to convince sinners of a need for a savior. When we look at the law, when we see that God's standard of righteousness, we realize we have not met it, we cannot meet it. When he gives us the law, and then in the Sermon on the Mount, you should be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Who has met that standard, nobody. And it's to break us, break our sinful hearts so we fall on our knees and tell God, I am spiritually bankrupt. I repent all my sin. Romans 3:20. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. It's through the law comes knowledge of sin. And that's what Paul talks about. He said, before I had the law that told me, thou shall not be envious, he said, I didn't know I was envious. And then the law comes and they realize that that's a sin. Romans 7:9. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, when I realized it, when I was under it, sin came alive and I died. The law taught Saint Paul. It teaches us the hopelessness of our situation. We realize that we have no righteousness in and of ourselves that would allow us to enter the presence of God. The law of God is to drive us to Christ. Now, when it does drive us to Christ? When we repent of our sins. When we are in the kingdom of God, then we get the third purpose of the law, which is to guide our Christian life, but we are fueled by gratitude to God and we demonstrate our love for him by living according to his will. He desires for us to live according to the standards in Sermon of the Mount. Do we do it perfectly? Of course not and there is always grace, we get up and we continue following Jesus, it's his will. It's his good and perfect will for us. And why does God give us the Sermon? Why does Jesus do this? Because he loves us. He forgives us of our sins and he wants us to stop sinning because he wants more happiness for us. He's like a good dad who has rules for his kids. I want the best for you so I do have rules for you. And this is exactly what this is. It's God wants the blessedness in our life, which is his presence and we do it by repenting of our sins and turning to him. When you try to fulfill the law, when you try to be good, you realize just how bad you are. This is a non-Christian, I'm a good person, I've never killed anybody. And then if you become a Christian, you're like, ah, Sermon on the Mount. I am disgusting. I am wicked. I am such a terrible human. Good, good. You're trying now to be good. The harder you try to be good, the more you realize how bad you are and the more you realize you need Jesus and the more you realize how brilliant the gospel is. The more you realize that the law of God isn't a burden, the law of God is actually a blessing. The law of God, it's like saying that wings for a bird are a burden, and they are not. The wings for a bird are not a burden, these are so heavy. They are blessing, now I can fly. That's what the law is. Matthew 5:4. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. If you're poor in spirit, you enter the kingdom of God, you are in. You have the kingdom of God. Then you mourn. You mourn over what? You mourn over your sin. Yes, I am poor in spirit. Yes, I have sinned. Not just I've made mistakes or hurt myself or hurt people, I've sinned against the holy, perfect, loving God. You mourn, it's a sadness that leads to true joy. It's when you realize that yes, I am truly sinful. The story goes that G.K. Chesterton saw that in the London Times, they had this contest where you had to write in a letter, an essay, of what is the biggest problem in the universe. What is the problem with the universe? People wrote in, the wrong politicians are in power, we've got to change that. Or the economic system doesn't work for everybody, we've got to change. G.K. Chesterton wrote in and he said, this is what he wrote. He said, "The problem with the universe is me. It's me. It's my sin. Each one of us." And the gospel allows us to own it, that the biggest problems aren't philosophical, sociological, theological, they are spiritual. My problem is my sin. If you don't believe in total depravity, if you don't believe in depravity of every single person, that we are sinners, all you have to do is go work customer service for one day. Phones, where they can't see your face. Work customer service and I will tell you, you will realize how wicked people are and you will turn to Jesus faster than anybody. Work customer service. We need to know that we are sinful and we aren't to blame others, blame family or upbringing or genes. No, we have to mourn over our own sinfulness. And Jesus says that's when we will be comforted. Also, mourn over sin in the world when we see sin. When we see evil, we are to mourn over it. The sins and blasphemies of our nation. We are to mourn over the erosion of the very concept of truth. What is true anymore? I don't know whom to believe other than Jesus Christ, other than the holy scripture. We're to mourn over greed and cynicism and lack of integrity. Psalm 119:36. My eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law. Once you realize you are spiritually bankrupt, you mourn over it, you turn to God and you ask for forgiveness, your salvation. This is where you grow in meekness. Matthew 5:5. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Meekness is not weakness, it's strength under control. In the Greek, it's used for an animal that's been tamed, where meekness is a form of submit. You realize, I'm to submit to Jesus. I am to submit to his yoke. I am to be meek like he is. Jesus was meek. Matthew 11:29. Take my yoke upon you, learn from me for I am gentle. That's the same Greek word for meek. And lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. Jesus has a yoke. Whose yoke is upon Jesus? The yoke and the will of God, the father. That's why in the garden of Gethsemane he said, "Please, Father, let this cup pass from me. If there is any other way, let this cup pass from me, but not my will, yours be done." Part of entering the kingdom is to realize I'm not the king, he's the king. I'm to take the yoke of the king upon myself, but Jesus is the one who carries most of the weight of the yoke. I'm yoked together. Do you know what yoke means? Not just you worked out a lot and you're yoked. It's the yoke of the animals. It's a harness. I'm harnessed with Jesus. We're going in the same direction. This is what it means to be meek. I'm submitting to him. Psalm 37:11. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace. This phrase of the meek shall inherit the earth was used in the Old Testament. It was used in the Old Testament to talk about what? That the meek, those who submit to God, shall inherit the promised land. Well, what about us, the meek shall inherit the earth? I've been praying this for years. Lord, please, I just want a little plot of land that I can call my own as a parking spot that I don't have to pay for on a monthly basis. I'm meek, meek. Can I have a little piece of land? And that's not what it's talking about. What it's talking about is the new heavens and the new earth, that when Jesus comes, returns, we will, as believers, followers of Christ, citizens of his kingdom, we will inherit the earth. Verse six. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Part of repentance is, God I want righteousness. I hunger and thirst for righteousness. And there is a satisfaction that comes with hungering and thirsting for the right things. If you hunger and you thirst for money, you shall not be satisfied. If you hunger and thirst for fame, you shall not be satisfied. If you hunger and thirst for pleasure, you shall not be satisfied. This promise is if you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you will be satisfied. What is righteousness? Righteousness is holiness, but it's deeper than that. Righteousness is rightness. Rightness with whom? Rightness with God. I have a relationship with God where I am accepted by God, received by God. This is what righteousness is. Righteousness allows you to be accepted by God. What's the most important rightness? It's with God. Am I right with God? That's what repentance is. You realize, I'm not right with God. God is displeased with me, and not just displeased, he's angry at my sin. There is a wrath of God for my law breaking. Lord, I repent of my unrighteousness and I hunger and thirst the deep desire for true righteousness, the true holiness. And I realize I don't have a righteousness of my own. This is what Saint Paul said. I realized I don't have a righteousness of my own. I need the righteousness of Christ. He says, everything else, I counted as lost so I repented of my righteousness. Yes, we have to repent of our sins, but we're also to repent of our righteousness, which is tainted and leads to pride and we are to take on Christ's righteousness. And this is the double imputation that on the cross, he who knew no sin, Jesus Christ, became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. The very moment you repent, you enter into the kingdom, you have a righteousness that's not your own, that's Christ's, but we have to grow into it to make it our own and we do that by hungering and thirsting for righteousness. We get this new identity, we're now in the kingdom through realizing our poverty of spirit, mourning over our sin, of realizing that we need Christ and to grow in meekness, et cetera, and then once we're in, we're to grow as citizens and this is what a transformed life looks like. Blessed are those who are merciful, who are pure in heart, those who are peacemakers and they will ultimately be persecuted. Verse seven. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. This is how I think about grace and mercy from God's perspective. Grace is when God gives us that which we do not deserve. He gives us the righteousness of Jesus Christ. He gives us entrance into the kingdom. Mercy is when God does not give us what we deserve. Grace is when he gives us what we don't deserve. Mercy is when he does not give us what we deserve, which is eternal separation from God in a place called Hell, when we trust in the gospel. But here mercy isn't from the perspective of God, it's from the perspective of people. To be merciful in this context, is costly compassion. Costly compassion. Christians need to grow in this desire and grow in compassion toward people. True compassion. And then act on it, which is always costly. And I'll give you two examples of this mercy. It's a human mercy that mirrors a divine mercy. The first example is Matthew 18. This mercy entails forgiveness. In Matthew 18, Jesus gives the parable of the king who has a servant that owes him 10,000 talons, which is millions of dollars and he forgives him. The man asked for forgiveness. The king forgives him. It's compassion. He had compassion on him and it's costly. Why is it costly? To forgive means the king has to absorb that loss. The king pays for that debt himself. That's what happens through the gospel when we trust in Jesus, God forgives us of our debt. Why? He doesn't just forgive, we have to be paid for, in order for God to remain just and Jesus paid for our debt. Part of that mercy is this costly compassion of forgiveness so we as Christians, we are to grow in forgiveness. Are there people in your life that you know that you need to forgive, especially after the political season is over. You've got to forgive some people. The scripture says bear with one another. That's talking to Christians. It also says, do not bite and devour one another. That's a very interesting phrase from the Book of Galatians. Forgive each other. We're to grow in this forgiveness. Also, we are to grow in the costly compassion of doing good to those who need it. And this is the story of the Good Samaritan. The story of the Good Samaritan is, he had compassion on this person who was hurt and it's costly because it took his time and it took his money. The mercy, we're to grow in mercy in terms of forgiveness and in terms of doing good deeds to those in need. And who is my neighbor? Love your neighbor. Who is my neighbor? It's a person who comes across your path who is in need, that's your neighbor. That's how Jesus defines it. In Matthew 5:8, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. You have a new heart and it's a heart that is to grow in purity. Jesus doesn't call us to himself to make us nice people. He calls us to himself to make us new people. We have a brand new heart and it's a heart that is to be pure. What does the word mean for pure? It means unmixed. It means undivided. It's the opposite of duplicity. You have a heart that has an undivided love for God. It's pure. It's not mixed with anything. There's not love for God and love for idols. It's pure. Psalm 24:3-4. Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord and who shall stand in his place, he who has clean hands and a pure heart who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. Purity from idols. As you grow in purity, he says you're going to grow in clarity of vision and seeing God. I love the connection here between morality and faith. How we live impacts how we believe. The more you pursue moral purity, the virtues of the life of the Sermon on the Mount, the stronger your faith gets, the more clarity you have about truth, about God. And when you begin to incrementally sin, get pulled away from God, you now grow in doubting. They always grow together. If you want to know that this is true, God is true, Christianity is true, holy scripture is true, are you desiring to grow in faithfulness to God? Faithfulness always deepens our faith. Purity is the path to seeing God and seeing him more clearly. Hebrew says we see him who was invisible, but there will come a time when Christ returns or when we go to him when we will literally see the God of the universe. And then in Matthew 5:9, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Once we're in the kingdom, now we have a new purpose. now we have a new direction in life for each one of us. We are to be peacemakers. What does the word peace here mean? Is it peace like the opposite of anxiety? No, that's not what's going on. It's peace as in the opposite of war, of hostility. We are to be peacemakers in that we bring the message of peace to those who are at war with God. That's how Christianity talks about becoming a Christian, becoming a believer, becoming a follower of God. It says, when you're not a Christian, you are at war with God. Why? Because you are trying to be your own king. You're trying to build your own kingdom and then Jesus Christ comes and says, no, no, no. The kingdom of God is at hand. I'm the king. How was that message received? I'm the king. How is it received? Well, a couple hundred people said, that's a great message. Okay, I'm going to submit to you. Everybody else said, we're going to kill you and that's how Jesus died. Jesus Christ is king. And when people are like, I'm not hostile to God. I might be indifferent, I'm agnostic. Because you haven't read his commandments, because you don't understand what he demands from you and the consequences for that. When you really understand if you break the moral commandments, if you don't turn to God, you will spend eternity apart from God in a place called Hell. When you understand all that, that God gets to tell you what your gender is, God gets to tell you what to do with your sexuality, and God gets to command all of that, then you realize, oh, that makes sense. Yes, we are at war with God. That's how scripture taught us. Look at Romans 5:1-11. Therefore since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our lord, Jesus Christ, through him we also obtain access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope for the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character. Character produces hope. Hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have been justified by his love, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God, for if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son much more now that we are reconciled should we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our lord, Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation. We were at war, God sends Jesus and says, I'm offering amnesty. Amnesty. I will forgive you of all of your sins. You need to receive that amnesty, if not, you are still an enemy of God. Romans 8:7-8. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. For those who are in the flesh cannot please God. What is enmity? Enmity Is our natural condition before God, it's our warfare. And the proof of this is, the very one time that God made himself vulnerable by being a human being, what do we do with him? We killed him. That shows us that we are at war with God. History isn't man's search for God. History is our attempt to get God off our back because we don't want to submit. Deep inside our rebellious nature, we don't want to submit, even to the God of the universe. Which, if you think about it, is the greatest folly ever. The greatest folly ever. When people go against the government, I'm going to take on the government. You're going to die. You're going to take on God? You're going to take on God? You're not going to take on God. You're going to die and you're going to die for eternity. So, turn to Jesus Christ, that's the whole point. But whenever I talk, the temperature in the room just when bleh, it just went terrible. Here's why I did that, because he goes from talking about peacemaker to persecution. You guys are peacemakers and now we're talking about persecution. That's Matthew 5:10-11. Why? Who was the prince of peace? Jesus Christ. He's the prince of peace. Why did he get killed? Because he came and he said, you're at war with God and God is going to send you to hell for all eternity. Receive the reconciliation. When you tell people that, they don't like it so you're going to get persecuted. That's the point here. That's the connection between verse nine and verse 10. Look at verse 10. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when other revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in Heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. The more you do peacemaking work by sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, sharing the law of God, that we've broken the law of God, the more you explain to people exactly what true reality is, of where their eternity will be a part of, the more you speak that truth, the more you will experience persecution. It's true. So if you have not experienced any persecution, you're like, my Christian life is great. No one reviles me for the name of Christ, not persecuted, perhaps you're not doing your job as a peacemaker. Perhaps you're not sharing the gospel when God calls you to share the gospel. Perhaps you're not living a life of righteousness that when people see your life of righteousness and they realize that their life isn't as righteous and that your life is actually a testimony to their condemnation, if you're not doing that, then you're not going to experience persecution. This is part and parcel of the Christian life that when we speak to people as ambassadors of the kingdom that they are at war with God, there will be persecution sometimes, but others will be awakened and be brought into the kingdom of God so we bear with that persecution. In John 15:8-20, Jesus Christ says that if the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember, the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. Philippians 1:29-30, for it has been granted to you a gift, for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him. That's one gift. The other gift is, but also suffer for his sake, engage in the same conflict that you saw I had and now here I still have. 2nd Timothy 3:12, indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, so prepare. As a Christian, don't be surprised when you're persecuted for righteousness sake, for the name of Jesus Christ. Get used to it. The other thing I want to point out is the Sermon on the Mount isn't just given to an individual, not to individual Christians, it's given to a community. He's got his disciples before him. His disciples sat down. And I saw that because we need one another. We need the community of believers in order to help one another live like this, in order to help one another bring the mission of peacemaking to the world. That's why the word brother is used eight times in this text. The other fun fact I will bring in just as here in conclusion really quickly. I got this from Peter Craft in a book that he wrote in 1992 on virtue. He says that the attitudes are actually the opposite of the seven deadly sins and I've never heard that and I was fascinated by it. You can meditate on that. He says the blessings of the beatitude, the virtues of the beatitude is how we counter the seven deadly sins. He says pride is countered by poverty of spirit, of humility. I like that. He says greed is countered with mercy. Greed is more stuff for me. Mercy is more stuff I can give to others. Envy is countered with mourning. Envy is, I want everything they have. Mourning is, I'm going to mourn over that sin. That one, I think he's kind of wedging it. I don't know, we can meditate on that. Wrath, the opposite of wrath is peacemaking. That's good. Sloth, the opposite of that is hunger and thirst for righteousness. I think that works. Gluttony, the opposite of gluttony is bearing persecution. Gluttony is, I'm just going to eat. Appetites grow. Persecution is, you're not even getting the bare necessities. Maybe that works. You can meditate on that. In conclusion, Galatians 3:15. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. The greatest blessing of the beatitudes, the greatest blessing of the being in the kingdom is obviously being in proximity to the king. How can we have these blessings, because the king wants these blessings. Why are we rich and why is the kingdom ours? Because Jesus became poor. Why are we comforted? Because Jesus mourned inconsolably. Why do we inherit the earth? Because Jesus lost everything. Why are we filled? Because he cried out. I thirst. Why do get mercy? Because God, the Father did not show him mercy. And why can we see God? Because on the cross, Jesus Christ did. This is great news of the gospel. If you are not in the kingdom, enter into the kingdom by repenting of sins and turning to him. And if you are in the kingdom, let us continue growing as citizens of the kingdom. Let us pray. Lord, Jesus, we thank you for the holy scriptures. What a rich word this is. Jesus, we thank you for the Sermon on the Mount. We thank you for claiming the truth to us. We thank for providing for a way for us to be reconciled with God though we were hostile to him. And I pray, Lord, as we enter your kingdom, let us live in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ on a daily basis, pursuing the righteousness, the holiness and perfection, fighting sin and continuing to pursue you and continuing to grow us and as a church to be ministers of reconciliation, to be peacemakers, to proclaim the gospel and give us opportunities to do that. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.