Main Idea: What is true righteousness?
Reading Assignment: Matthew 5:21-48
Key verse: Matthew 5:20
Jesus teaches that His disciples will uphold the true righteousness of God which is deep and internal, and not the superficial and external righteousness popular in His day.
Jesus corrects six false ideas about righteousness that the religious leaders of His day taught:
“Don’t commit Murder” is all that they taught, but Jesus taught that anger is sin in the sight of God.
“Don’t commit Adultery” is all that they taught, but Jesus taught that lust in the heart is sin.
“Divorce for any reason at all” is what they taught, but Jesus taught marital faithfulness.
“Keep your Oaths” is all that they taught, but Jesus taught us to have integrity and honesty in all our dealings.
“Take Revenge” is what they taught, but Jesus taught us not to retaliate but to show mercy.
“Hate your Enemies” is what they taught, but Jesus taught us to love our enemies.
Prayer Suggestions:
Jesus, Your words are right. I accept Your standard of true righteousness; I forsake my own standard of false righteousness.
I have sinned by thinking or doing (fill in the blank) against Your righteous laws. Please forgive me.
Help me to grow in true righteousness, one that is deep inside of me, in my heart.
I commit to listening to Your word. Please renew my mind and heart.
Transcript
We’ll go ahead and pray. Yeah, we'll begin.
God, thank You. Thank You for the way You watch over us and care for us every day. Every day we have life and breath and our hearts continue to pump blood and our lungs continue to fill with air. It's all the indication that You are sustaining us another day. Every day we survive the traffic and road hazards and everything else does the testament to Your grace upon our lives. This shows us how much indebted we are to You. We are not only Your creatures. We are those who are kept and sustained by You, the sovereign God. We thank You that we have life and breath, not so that we would squander it, but that we would live it for Your glory and honor. And that we would learn to keep Your word. And that we would learn to love You and worship You as we should. I thank You for these men, bless them as well as Ying who reads the transcript later. I pray for each one that You would fill their hearts and their lives and their minds with Your truth more and more. And that our lives will be grounded in Your truth. Furthermore, I pray that as they pray and seek You every day, that they would know the sweetness of connecting with You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who alone has paid a penalty for our sin. For that through Him, we can know You and we can commune with You. Thank You, God, that there is a pathway back to You, for every sinner who repents and clings onto Jesus. Thank You for this morning together. Bless our time together. In Jesus’ name.
The next passage to be read is Matthew 5:21 through 48. That's the remainder of Chapter 5. The main idea of this new section is this. I'll put it in a question form: What is true righteousness? What is true righteousness? This is the question Jesus answers. In these verses the key verse I want to point out is actually from the prior section. It's the last verse of the prior section, Chapter 5, verse 20. Where Jesus says, “Truly I say to you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not inherit the Kingdom of heaven.” When Jesus says those words, what He means is this, that the scribes and the Pharisees, the Jewish religious leaders of his day, they held to a false form of righteousness. And that those who are truly the children of God, they uphold and pursue the true righteousness that Jesus teaches, the only kind of righteousness that is pleasing in the sight of God. And through this next section, what Jesus does is to make a contrast between the teaching of these false teachers and His teaching. You will hear the phrase, repeated again and again. Something along the lines of, “But I say to you.” And what does Jesus mean? To say with those words is to pit His teaching against the false standard of righteousness of the religious leaders of His day. Strangely enough, because these are Jewish religious leaders, some of their teachings as Jesus exposes them sound biblical. But they really aren't. They're vaguely connected to the Bible, but they weren't exactly what God said or meant. And so Jesus brings correction to these false ideas. Many of those ideas weren't only relevant to Jesus’ day. They're actually quite relevant today, because all the false ideas of righteousness have to do with external righteousness or technical righteousness. But of course, neither external righteousness nor technical righteousness is acceptable in the sight of God. What God wants to see in the lives of His people is true, deep, internal, biblical righteousness. Righteousness that springs forth from the heart that aligns with His character revealed in the Bible. Those false teachers taught the same idea promoted today, that if you just don't commit the external act of sin, then you are technically righteous. You're good enough for God and maybe even good enough for heaven. But of course this is simply not true. What Jesus shows is what He said back in 5:8, His disciples are to be pure in heart. The righteousness of God's people is not a surface superficial veneer. It is a deep-down righteousness that springs forth from a transformed heart, and of course only God can give that transformed heart. And Jesus alone can teach us to be changed from the heart.
Jesus contrasts true righteousness with false righteousness in six areas of morality. The first area is murder. The false teachers taught that if you don’t commit murder, everything else (including reviling or name-calling) means you’re good with God. They said, just avoid murder, and you’ll be a righteous person. But Jesus shows us this is not so. God sees the anger in our heart and He hears every regrettable word we say, and He will hold us accountable for every careless word we have ever spoken (Matt. 12:36).
The second area is adultery. They taught that if you don’t commit adultery, then you are technically pure. You can view all the sexually immoral things you like. Watching is safe and guiltless, as long as you don’t actually engage in intercourse with someone not your spouse. But Jesus corrects this type of thinking. Jesus shows us that God sees our hearts. God sees the imagination of our hearts. Jesus teaches us that sexual purity must run deep in our own hearts.
The third area is divorce. The false teachers taught that you can divorce for any reason at all. They taught that marital faithfulness was not very important. You can just move onto another partner if you want, just be sure to follow the standard procedure of the Old Testament. They practiced no-fault divorce long before it became California law in 1970. They woefully misunderstood Scripture. Jesus upheld the standard of God that comes from Genesis Chapter 2, that marriage is meant to be between one man and one woman for a lifetime. He taught that the only legitimate basis for divorce was infidelity.
The fourth area is taking oaths. In a society much like ours, words were cheap in Jesus’ day. People said what they wanted whether it was true or not; and whether a person kept their word or not didn’t matter all that much. The false teachers of Jesus’ day taught that if you took an oath, then you must definitely be honest and keep your word. Otherwise, you can be flexible with your commitments and you can be flexible with the truth—you can tell what we might call white lies. But the Bible teaches that God hates a lying tongue and that a man of God keeps his word even when it hurts (Psalm 15:4). Jesus upheld the word of God that called for total integrity and total honesty. Jesus put it this way, “let your statement be ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of the evil one.” The true righteousness of God calls for shooting it straight every time.
The fifth area is revenge. While the religious leaders of Jesus’ day said that you should always fight back and retaliate, Jesus taught that we ought to show mercy. I should clarify that when Jesus taught about non-retaliation, He was not talking about principles of war or national security or national defense or things of that nature. Other parts of Scripture speak to those issues. But He is talking about our dealings with our neighbors, friends, and colleagues. When we encounter times of conflict, we should take the way of mercy, not payback.
Sixthly, Jesus dealt with how we treat our enemies. The false teachers of Jesus’ day said you should love your neighbors and hate your enemies. The Bible never taught that. Instead, as Jesus teaches us, we are to love our enemies. And the example He gives is this: God. God treats both the good and the wicked the same with regard to His provision. He causes the sun to rise on everyone. He sends down the rain upon everyone indiscriminately, whether they're righteous or unrighteous. That's how God treats His enemies. Clearly there is a day of judgment in which God will hold everybody accountable. But until that day, God shows people everywhere the wide swath of provision and care. God cares for His enemies; so should we. So then, when we face people who have set themselves against us, even those who want to hurt us or persecute us, we are not to hate them. Instead, we are to love them and pray for them.
So these are the six areas of righteousness. Murder (the external issue) versus anger (the heart issue). Adultery (the external) versus the root issue of sexual lust (the heart). No-fault divorce versus marital loyalty. Taking and keeping oaths versus integrity and honesty. Revenge versus mercy. Hatred for enemies versus love for our enemies. This is God's true standard of righteousness given from the lips of Jesus our Lord. I would say that all of these are actually non-human. They're not earthly. These are a divine standard of righteousness, supremely higher than anything that man can imagine or teach.
So how do we respond to God in prayer regarding all these things?
I think we need to respond to God honestly from the heart. The first thing to do is to admit that God is right. That whatever the word of God says, we say, “God, You are right.” Instead of complaining that this is unfair. We ought to say, “God, You are right.” Once we have resolved that God has the authority to define what true righteousness is, we then confess where we have gone wrong. We confess to Jesus, “I have sinned with this or that thought, deed, or words.” Along with confession, we repent. We seek to make this right with God. Lastly, we seek the aid of His Holy Spirit. We tell Jesus that we need a heart transformation, not a mere external habit transformation. And for this, we need His presence through His Spirit to make us into new people.
For this time, I am going to ask you to pray on your own and connect with Jesus. There is no way I can enter your heart and represent what you must say to the Lord. You can be dead honest with Jesus. He already knows all things and you can’t hide a thing from Him anyway. Whatever you sense in your heart that hasn’t been right with Him, just tell Jesus this and seek His forgiveness. You can go to Him, because He has gone to the cross for these very sins. Also, if you seek change, then ask Him for His help. Ask Him to help you grow in righteousness. And remain committed to listen to Jesus, and express your commitment in prayer. Ask the Lord to renew your heart and mind. You will find that if you approach the Lord honestly from your heart, that His Spirit will assure you of the cleansing of sin, and His truth will slowly but surely renew your heart and mind.
And so pray to the Lord in this way, and you'll find the enriching and transformative work of His Spirit in you as you continue to carefully listen to Jesus’ words. Well, that's it for today. Lord bless you, and I'll see you again on Wednesday. You all have a blessed day. Bye.