Sermon Cloud

NOTE: There is an inaccurate Scripture reference given during the audio portion of this sermon. The reference to Jesus demanding perfection is mistakenly said to appear at the end of Matthew chapter 7 when it actually appears at the end of chapter 5.

Introduction

This morning I want to talk about two questions that must be answered by every Christian. They are difficult questions that sometimes cause confusion and sometimes cause contention. How is a Christian to understand the relationship between faith and works? And what is a Christian to do with the Old Testament? I want to start with the second question. What is a Christian to do with the Old Testament? The books that we refer to as the Old Testament fill up 75% of our Bibles, but they are certainly not given 75% of our attention. Some of us find the Old Testament long and boring, even confusing, so we don’t read it. Then there are some of us do our best to read the Old Testament faithfully but as we read it we struggle with how a Christian should interpret it. Once we’ve settled on an interpretation, we struggle with how it applies to us as modern Christians. After all, most of it seems to be directly speaking to or about the nation of Israel, of which we are not a part. Much of it deals with the Law of Moses, which the New Testament tells us we have been liberated from. And most of the prophecies it includes refer to events that have already happened. So even those of us who read it ask, “what is a Christian to do with the Old Testament?”

This question doesn’t just apply to the people in the congregation, but to the teachers in the pulpit and in the Sunday School classrooms as well. The same two problems show themselves here also. Preachers either ignore the Old Testament or they struggle to properly apply it. Some seem to arbitrarily take some commands and make them binding upon the Christian while saying that others do not apply. Some use the Old Testament as a moral storybook, teaching us about some of the moral successes of its characters (usually ignoring the moral failures) and telling us to emulate them. Is this the proper use of the Old Testament? What is a Christian to do with the Old Testament? Can you relate to this question?

The relationship between the Old Testament and the message of Jesus is a point of confusion for many modern Christians. The relationship between the Old Testament and the message of Jesus was also a point of confusion for the first-century Jews who heard it firsthand. The Jewish people were anxiously awaiting the promised Kingdom of God when out of nowhere this obscure, 30 year old Rabbi from a humble background appeared and announced that the Kingdom of God had arrived and that it had arrived through his ministry. This same Rabbi then goes on to speak with authority on matters relating to this Kingdom. This is what we have seen over the past couple of weeks as we began studying Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount together. Thus far we have seen Jesus challenge his audience’s understanding of the Kingdom of God. He has told us that this kingdom has been opened to the most unlikely people: the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the peacemakers, the persecuted. He then called these same people the salt of the earth and the light of the world -- metaphors that were sometimes used to describe the Law of Moses itself. All of this must have shocked Jesus’ Jewish audience. It likely appeared to some of them that he was directly contradicting their Holy Scriptures. Others likely struggled to see how Jesus’ message of the Kingdom could be reconciled with their understanding of the Kingdom and the Old Testament. Just as modern Christians ask, “what is a Christian to do with the Old Testament,” Jesus’ audience must have been asking, “how can we reconcile Jesus’ message of the Kingdom with the Old Testament?” Jesus anticipated these questions and answers them for us in the Sermon on the Mount, right where we left off last week, beginning in chapter 5 verse 17.

Jesus: The Fulfillment of all of Scripture

We have said that Jesus’ Kingdom is an upside down kingdom. It seems to flip the ideas and values of the world and religion on their head. Because of this, Jesus knew that his Kingdom message might cause some confusion. He anticipated that many people would misunderstand his relationship to the Old Testament Scriptures. So he addresses this issue right up front, “do not think that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.”

The phrase the Law and the Prophets refers to all of Old Testament Scripture -- every one of the 39 Old Testament books we have in our Bibles, from Genesis to Malachi. Jesus says that he has not come to take away or to contradict even smallest letter nor the least stroke of a pen. Instead, he has come to fulfill them. This is a grand claim. This obscure, 30 year-old Rabbi is standing before a crowd of faithful Jews and proclaims, “I am the fulfillment of all of your sacred Scripture.” I imagine the crowd must have been speechless. If he is telling the truth then the hope of Israel has arrived. If he is lying then he has just committed the blasphemy of all blasphemies. We have the advantage of knowing how the story ends, but we should not be any less shocked by the statement -- I have come to fulfill all of your Sacred Scriptures.

Jesus, in his person, in his life, and in his teaching, is the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament. What does this mean? A lot of times you will hear people talk about how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament Law by obeying it with perfection. And this is true. We must understand this and believe this as this is key to our redemption. It is because Jesus perfectly obeyed the Law at every point that he is able to absorb the wrath for our sins and transfer his righteousness to us. But this is not all Jesus did to fulfill the Scriptures. Jesus does not claim to simply obey all of the Old Testament Law, he claims to fulfill the entirety of Scripture. Oftentimes you hear people talk about how Jesus fulfilled specific Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah who was to come and deliver Israel and be a light to the Gentiles. And it is extremely important that we understand that Jesus did do just that. But he didn’t just do that. Jesus does not claim to simply fulfill the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, he claims to fulfill the entire Old Testament. Sometimes you hear people talk about how Jesus fulfills certain types, or shadows, or figures of the Old Testament. In other words, Jesus is the true Temple, and the true High Priest, and the true Israel, and the true Sabbath, and the true King. This also is true, all of these things are mere shadows in the Old Testament that find their true fulfillment in the person of Jesus. It is imperative that we understand how each of these things points to Jesus and how Jesus fulfills them. But Jesus’ claim to be the fulfillment of the Old Testament is even bigger than that. When Jesus says that he fulfills all of the Holy Scriptures he is saying that no one can understand any portion of the Old Testament apart from him. He is the substance and subject of all of Scripture. He is the key to unlocking its true meaning. All of Scripture points to him and finds its meaning and its authority in his person, in his actions, and in his teachings.

The implications of this are far reaching. For his Jewish audience it meant that no matter how much of an expert you may be in the Hebrew Scriptures, no matter how much you may have memorized, you have yet to understand them and yet to properly interpret them if you have read them as anything other than what Jesus says they are. It means that everything that Israel has been hoping for, everything their prophets have promised, has finally arrived in the person of this humble, Galilean peasant named Jesus.

For us as modern Christians the implications are just as serious. It means that the Old Testament is tremendously relevant to us because it is about Jesus, who we love and worship. So for us to avoid it or ignore it is to avoid and ignore some of the revelation of our Lord. It means that when we do read the Old Testament we cannot just arbitrarily select laws for us to obey and characters for us to emulate. The Old Testament was not given to us for that purpose. It was given to us to reveal Jesus Christ, who is the fulfillment of every portion of Scripture.

It also means that our understanding of the Gospel must be adapted to include all of Scripture. What is the Gospel? We would all agree that the Gospel is the message about Jesus Christ. And we see here that Jesus says that all Scripture is about him. We can conclude from both of these facts that all of Scripture is intimately related to the Gospel. But it is so common today for Christians to think of the Gospel as the simple basics of Christianity. We think of the Gospel as the very minimum amount of information we must know and believe in order to be a part of the people of God: Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus rose again. For many of us that is the Gospel and once we have grasped that we think that we are ready to move onto more meaty things. We think that as we mature we need less Gospel and more theology, more apologetics, more practical wisdom. This is the common view among modern evangelicals. When I talk with other pastors at other Gospel-centered churches they all have at least one story about someone in their congregation who is complaining about wanting to move on past the Gospel and into heavier things. When we think of the Gospel in this way we don’t understand the Gospel and we don’t understand the words of Jesus in verse 17.

We cannot look at the Gospel as something basic and theology as something heavy. Instead, we have to look at theology as a part of the Gospel. We cannot look at the Gospel as something important to our initial salvation and Scriptural wisdom as something important to the rest of our Christian life. Instead, we have to look at Scriptural wisdom as part of the Gospel. All of the Bible is about Jesus, therefore, all of the Bible is related to the Gospel. There is no theology apart from the Gospel. There is no apologetics apart from the Gospel. There is no Scriptural wisdom apart from the Gospel. So a church that teaches the Bible without teaching the Gospel is not teaching the Bible. And when we read the Bible we can just read passages in isolation, we have to read them through the lens of the Gospel. Imagine what Ekklesia can look like if we as a church can truly grasp this, embrace this, and live by this. If we can truly interpret everything in light of the Gospel.

Jesus says that he is the fulfillment of all of Scripture. This means that when we read the Old Testament we read it through the lens of Jesus and his Gospel. Jesus is the sole authoritative interpreter of the Scriptures. Only he can reveal their true meaning because their true meaning is found in Jesus, the King, and his Kingdom. This is why Jesus says what he says in verse 18, “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished.” In one sense, the Law will always be relevant because it is fulfilled in Jesus, who is eternal. So as we look at the Law we see the face of our eternal God. In another sense, though, the Law will never be what it once was because Jesus has fulfilled everything that it pointed to. This was centrally accomplished through his righteous life, his substitutionary death, his victorious resurrection, and his authoritative ascension. Through this sequence of redemptive acts Jesus liberated us from the demands of the Law that we could not meet, redeemed us from the curse of sin and rebellion, and rescued us from the wrath of God which every one of us has earned in full. What is a Christian to do with the Old Testament? We’re to read it in light of Jesus and his Gospel.

Jesus: The Fulfillment of Obedience

This leads us to the other question we began with this morning: how is a Christian to understand the relationship between faith and works? Most of us know intellectually that the Bible teaches us that our salvation is not the result of our own works, but of our faith in Jesus and his perfect work. But we also know that the Bible is filled with commands for Christians to follow. It seems that certain works are clearly expected from those who are followers of Jesus. So just how do faith and works relate? Some churches answer this question by placing so much emphasis on works that the people in the church begin to live as though their position with God depends entirely on what they do or do not do. This is called legalism. And it is contrary to the Gospel. Some other churches answer the question by placing so much emphasis on faith and grace that some in the church may begin to live as though what they do or do not do is of no significance. This is called licentiousness. It too is contrary to the Gospel. The Gospel of Jesus Christ does not exalt works so that we live lives of legalism, but it also does not demean works so that we live lives of license. Thus far in our study of the Sermon on the Mount we have seen that Jesus welcomes people into his kingdom based on his merit and not theirs. We have seen that he graciously redeems those who are not thought to be worthy of redemption -- the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, the persecuted. We have seen that he uses these people as the salt of the earth and the light of the world, not based on their qualifications, but on his. Jesus has shown us that his Kingdom is a Kingdom of grace. Because he alone fulfills all of the Scriptures he alone can reconcile man to God. And he does. The message of Scripture is that salvation only comes in Jesus Christ alone, by God’s grace alone, through our faith alone. Entrance into the Kingdom of God is not based on works. But our place in that Kingdom is directly related to our works.

This is what Jesus tells us in verse 19. “Anyone who breaks 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 practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.” Now notice that this judgment is not about inclusion or exclusion in the Kingdom. It is about our position in the Kingdom. If we are followers of Jesus who put our faith in him for our redemption then we are already Kingdom citizens. But our place in the Kingdom will be determined by our works, by how we live and what we teach. We will be judged according to what we do and what we teach. If we obey Jesus and teach others to do the same we will be great in the Kingdom of Heaven. If we disobey Jesus and teach others to do likewise we will be least in the Kingdom of Heaven.

If we are followers of Jesus we are expected to obey the King we follow. The fact that we are saved in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, does not make obedience any less valuable. In some sense it makes it more valuable. The religious person obeys God in order to be accepted by God. In this case obedience is like a toll we pay so that we can get over the bridge. Once we have crossed the bridge we owe nothing. Obedience is different for the Christ-follower. The Christ-follower knows that through Jesus she has already been accepted by God so she then obeys. In this case obedience is the natural response to acceptance rather than the means to acceptance. This gives obedience a different character and a different limit. If obedience is the means to acceptance then it is simply a tool I use in order to get what I want. I do not necessarily want to obey, but I do want what I will get if I obey. But if obedience is something I do because I’ve already been accepted then it is something I do because I want to do it. I do it for the sake of the person I’m obeying rather than for my own sake. Again, if obedience is the means to acceptance then once I have been accepted I have no motivation to obey. But if obedience is something I do because I’ve already been accepted then there is no limit to my obedience. Because of God’s grace our obedience becomes both more meaningful and more demanding. Instead of aiming for keeping the law, we aim for Christ.

And as we aim for Jesus we hear him tell us that we are expected to do and to teach all of these commandments. He did not come to abolish the Law. He fulfilled it in all obedience. Jesus fulfilled obedience. And since Jesus does not break or abolish the Law his followers are not to break or abolish the Law. We are to obey it. But we are to obey it differently than an ancient Jew would have obeyed it. We are to obey it by worshiping and obeying Jesus, who is himself the fulfillment of the Law. As followers of Christ we cannot minimize the importance of obedience. It is because Jesus fulfilled obedience on our behalf and freely gave us life and redemption that he can now ask anything of us. Anything. If he is Lord at all he is Lord of all. He is Lord of your relationships. Do you obey him in all of your relationships? He is Lord over your finances. Do you obey him with your money? He is Lord over your time. Do you obey him with how you spend it? He is Lord over your sexuality. He is Lord over your hopes, dreams, and goals. Do you obey him in your pursuit of these? He is Lord over the very words you speak. Do you obey him with what you say and don’t say? He is Lord over every thought you think. Do you obey him with what and how you think? I’m not asking whether or not you live a moral life. I am asking if you actively obey the Lord, Jesus, in every area of your life, no matter what the cost.

Jesus: The Fulfillment of Righteousness

The Gospel of grace is not a gospel of leniency. It is a gospel that demands true righteousness, perfect righteousness in fact. In verse 20 Jesus says, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” I imagine that when Jesus spoke these words his entire audience was frozen speechless. Remember that the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were considered to be the epitome of righteousness. The Pharisees were famous for their scrupulous adherence to the written and the oral Law. The Scribes were esteemed for their faithfulness in preserving, interpreting, and teaching the Law. Yet Jesus says that only those who are even more righteous than them will be able to enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus is not saying that these people were not in any sense righteous, he is saying that even they are not righteous enough. The Jews actually had a saying, “if only two people go to heaven one will be a Scribe and the other a Pharisee.” Jesus’ audience must have thought to themselves: More righteous than the Pharisees and the Scribes? How is that possible? If this is what is required then no one will make it into the Kingdom!

And that is probably exactly what Jesus wanted them to understand. That those who rely on their own righteousness will never be righteous enough to enter into God’s Kingdom. This is because Jesus does not simply demand external conformity to the Law, he demands the true righteousness to which the Law truly points. This righteousness of the Law does not find its fulfillment in our own actions, it has found its fulfillment in Jesus Christ -- in his person, his actions, and his teachings. When Jesus demands righteousness for entrance into his Kingdom he is demanding something that only he can supply.

This means that the most externally righteous, the Pharisees, are on level ground with the most externally unrighteous, the tax collectors. To put this in modern terms it means that the most moral church-goers are on level ground with the most immoral people outside of the church. Neither group possesses the righteousness that is necessary to enter God’s Kingdom. Both groups need perfect righteousness to be supplied for them. Jesus illustrates this in a story he tells us found in Luke 18. He tells us that, “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men — robbers, evildoers, adulterers — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Neither one of these men was worthy of God’s acceptance. But one person did receive it. While not one person is righteous enough to enter into the Kingdom of God those who acknowledge this and look to Jesus to supply the righteousness they cannot supply will enter into God’s Kingdom.

It is my prayer that all of us who trust in our own righteousness will embrace the experience of a first-century Pharisee named Paul. As a Pharisee, Paul was highly respected by the community and notably righteous by all external standards. But by the grace of God this righteous and respected Pharisee would come to see that even his esteemed reputation was rubbish. He recognized that even his righteousness was not righteous enough. So he abandoned it. This Pharisee, Paul, wrote down his experience in his own words. Let’s read it together from Philippians 3:4-9.

True righteousness can only come by faith in the Truly Righteous, Jesus. Thankfully, the Scriptures tell us that when we abandon our own righteousness and put our faith in Jesus and his righteousness God performs a miracle that Martin Luther called, “the Great Exchange.” In the Great Exchange God takes our sin, and rebellion, and filth -- removes it from us -- and places is it upon Jesus on the Cross. At the same time he takes Jesus’ righteousness and position before God and places it upon us. Now we are united with Christ and enabled to enter the Kingdom of God because we have been given the righteousness of Christ. Theologians call this “imputation” because God imputes Christ’s righteousness to us. The Kingdom of God then is accessible to those whose faith is in Christ and his righteousness rather than in ourselves and our righteousness.

But don’t think that this excuses Christ-followers from pursuing personal righteousness. Just as God imputes the righteousness of Christ to those who put their faith in him he also imparts righteousness to them. He does this by filling Christ-followers with the Holy Spirit, who lives with us and empowers us to live like Jesus. Every Christ-follower is filled with the Holy Spirit upon conversion so every Christ-follower is expected to live an obedient life. While God gives us the righteousness of Christ that we might enter the Kingdom of God he also empowers us with his Holy Spirit so that we might live out that righteousness as Kingdom citizens. Here we see the proper relationship between faith and works. We are declared to be righteous through faith, and we faithfully live out that righteousness through obedience. We are given the righteousness of Christ that we might enter into the Kingdom of God and display the righteousness of God’s Kingdom to the world by living in obedience.

Conclusion

This passage that we’ve discussed today is key to our interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount. It’s also key to our interpretation of all of Scripture. Jesus tells us that he is the fulfillment of all of Scripture, the fulfillment of all obedience, and the fulfillment of all righteousness. In a very real sense he is the fulfillment of every religion -- because he shows God to us and brings us to God. There is no religion, no righteousness, no obedience, and no proper understanding of Scripture apart from Jesus Christ. He alone is the fulfillment of all of these things. And as the fulfillment he is the supreme authority over all of these things and over everything else. Which means that there is no religion, no person, no ideology, no cause, more worthy of our devotion than Jesus Christ. There is also no one more worthy of our obedience. Do we believe that? Do we live like we believe that? Do we take Jesus’ commands seriously? Do we take Jesus seriously? If we do we will know that we can do nothing to earn God’s favor, because Jesus is our righteousness. But we will also devote ourselves to keeping Jesus’ every commandment - not in order to get something, but because he is the supreme authority over all of the universe. He is the King. And as Kingdom citizens we honor him by living obediently in his Kingdom under his authority.

It is my prayer that we will leave here today devoted to finding Jesus in the pages of Scripture, that we will be passionate like never before about obeying Jesus, our Lord, and that we will be committed to expressing the righteousness of Jesus in our communities, in our church, in our home, and in our individual lives. Whether you entered these doors today as a follower of Jesus or not my question for all of you is the same. Will you commit to doing this with me? Will you commit to being about the mission of Jesus Christ? I’m not asking you to commit yourself to a religion. I am asking this: will you commit to re-ordering your entire life around the person of Jesus, the Gospel of Jesus, and the teachings of Jesus no matter what it might cost you?

Questions for Discussion and Reflection

1. How would you describe your experience with the Old Testament? Do Jesus’ words in 5:17 add anything to your understanding? Why or why not?

2. The Gospel is the subject of the entire Bible. But if someone asked you to briefly share the Gospel with them what points or themes would you emphasize? Why?

3. Though we are saved in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, Jesus expects our obedience to his Lordship in every sphere of life. Are there any areas of your life where you are willfully withholding the obedience Jesus expects? If so, why? What will it take for you to obey Jesus in this/these area(s)?

4. How does Jesus’ demand for righteousness in 5:20 challenge you personally?

5. What are some ways that Ekklesia, as a community, can reflect the righteousness of Christ in our city?