Best Sermon Ever: The Law

Hello family. How are you? We've got somebody upset already. That happens to me a lot. Hey, glad you're here this morning. Before we get rolling, I guess it's about noon-ish now, before we get rolling, I want to talk to you about offering. One of the ways that we worship God here at our church is by giving back of our tithes and offerings. This is a way for us to say thank you to God for the ways that he's been generous to us. If you want to do that, you can do that online, you can do that on our website, you can do it on the app, or if you're in the room, at every exit there's a black box that is mounted to the wall and you can drop your offering right in there if you want to, and we'll make sure we get it.

Before we get started into our sermon, I want to talk about your faithfulness and I'm really proud of our church for this. You know that one of the things that we do with the monies that you give to our church is that we support missionaries around the world. One of those is Central India Christian Mission, and if you've been watching the news over the last few months, you know that the COVID outbreak in India is very severe right now. Because it's in really poverty-stricken areas, they don't have a ton of the resources medically to deal with this, plus there's just a lot of people there. So Central India Christian Mission has a hospital and they're trying to raise money to get an oxygen generating machine. What that does is it allows them to create those tanks of oxygen that helps people breathe when things are really bad and that's super helpful in the treatment of COVID. So, we were able to give them $50,000 because of your faithfulness towards the purchase of that machine. (Congregation clapping) That's pretty awesome! Here's another awesome part. I don't want to get really technical on you, but this is even more awesome! Because of that oxygen generation machine, they've been able to network with other hospitals in the area for the purpose of sharing these oxygen tanks. What's happening is the gospel is going into these places and there's tons of people that are saying yes to Jesus who work at the hospitals, not even people whose lives are being saved, even though they're saying yes to Jesus too, but people who are doctors and nurses and those kinds of people are saying yes as well, because of an oxygen generator machine. That’s what happens when you guys are faithful with your giving. So, thank you. That's really, really awesome. (Congregation clapping)

We are in week 3 of the Best Sermon Ever! Are you guys ready to go to work? Yeah, I'm excited about this week! You think we talked about hard things last week. We're going to talk about some hard stuff today. Here's the thing, I said this at the beginning of the series, I think that this passage, this Sermon on the Mount passage of scripture is perhaps the most relevant passage of scripture in the entire Bible for where we're at as a culture today. This is just significant, and I know that there are a lot of people who,  as our culture becomes more and more secularized, we will have different ideas about how to fix it. I have good news, there's nothing new under the sun, and Jesus already has a plan for it. It will just be really hard for us to do. Simple, just not easy. It's not complicated, it’s just hard. So, if you and I, believe that the church needs to go back to some version of what it was in the sixties and seventies, this sermon is for you! If you believe that the answer for America is more and more and more rules to follow this sermon is for you. If you've already composed your email, because I'm wearing a t-shirt, the sermon is for you. (Pastor implying that this sermon is going to unsettle you. Be prepare.) I pick on the emails, to be fair, 99% of the emails that I get are awesome, they really are. You might ask, ”People care about what you wear”? You would be amazed. I had one person tell me I looked like I was going on a duck hunt rather than preaching a sermon. I thought, obviously you've never been on a duck hunt. (Congregation laughing) This is not anything close to what you would wear. People care about that stuff. It's Connections class today, second half of Connections class. My shirt says Connections, that's why I wore it today.

All right, so we need to wrestle with this thing, Matthew 5, Jesus is talking about the law. Now, there are a couple of things that you need to know about the Jewish world to help you understand how significant this conversation is. One of them is there are two major periods of history that define for the Jews, still to this day, but especially in the first century, define for them who they are as a people. You cannot underestimate how important these are. Number 1 is the Exodus. This is where they were brought out of slavery from Egypt, and they became the first born among creation, and then they're taken to Sinai, and they become the bride. These are pieces of their identity, and they're given the law and they become mosaic Jews from that point forward. This is a whole new identity rooted in the law. The other significant piece for them is Babylon. Babylon is a game-changer for the Israelites because, if you read the Old Testament, what you notice is that they can't keep themselves straight. They keep becoming morally bankrupt and they do good for a while, but then they do really bad. Then they do good for awhile, and then they do really bad. They can't keep themselves on the path. Other nations that had come in to conquer them taxed them really heavy, but they let them stay where they lived. It was inconvenient, they had to pay for other empires, but it wasn't as bad as Babylon. Babylon was bad! Babylon had a different ruling style. Babylon would punch you in the face, kick your dog, call your mom names and then haul you off. They were mean. Babylon was a different bunch. They hauled all the Jews off to Babylon to be slaves. In Babylon, what we see emerge is this whole new system of Judaism to the point where from that point on, they are no longer called mosaic Jews, they're called Babylonian Jews. When Jesus is on the scene, we see the office of Pharisee. This never shows up in the Old Testament. Where does that come from? It comes from Babylon. It started in Babylon. The Pharisees were there to help us figure out what the rules are and live them out. The Synagogue, which is all over the New Testament is not in the old Testament at all. Where does it come from? It comes from Babylon. They developed a system there that would allow them to keep the rules, and here's why. This can be more or less true in your own mind. It doesn't matter, this is what they believed. They believed that the reason why they went to Babylon is because they sinned, and because they had sinned, God sent them into slavery.

When they come back from Babylon, they come back determined to live righteously. They would do anything to keep the rules. Why? Because they didn’t want to go into captivity anymore. They didn’t want to get hauled off into slavery anymore. They were going to live righteous. This is super significant because if we're not careful, when we read the gospels, we can see the Pharisees as these mean ogres. That is not who they are. They are trying to keep the rules. These are good people misguided, but good people trying to make sure that the nation of Israel doesn't go back into captivity. They're just missing it. Here's how they're missing it. The second thing that we need to know before we get into this is that they're cherry picking the law. What that means is they're reading parts of it. They like some parts and didn't like other parts, so they don't read those parts. Totally different than the world you and I live in, right? Like we all do this. We all do it at some level. We cherry pick the Bible. We like one verse, but don’t like a different one. The reason is because one makes sense to us, but if the verse we don’t like is also true, then it creates a tension between two things. We don't like tension. We Like resolution. We want everything to be resolved. The reason we want everything to be resolved is so that we don’t have to think of about it anymore. The thing is, the Bible was written by Jewish people. I don't know if you know that, but the fundamental Jewish hermeneutic is tension, not resolution. The Bible is written in such a way that it forces tension. If we're going to be honest with it. The only way to avoid tension in scripture is to not be honest with it, but we don't like that tension. We want resolution, so we cherry pick, saying, “I want the Bible to say this because it’s black and white, and blah, blah, blah”. The Bible also talks a ton about how we're supposed to treat people and that it doesn't work when there’s tension in trying to hold two things that don’t go together. There’s tension in our call to holiness, being set aside and sanctified in all, and how do I hold that in tension with loving people well right where they're at? How do I hold those two things? It's hard to do that, but that's the kingdom. The only way to get around it is for you and I to be dishonest with the whole of the scripture. So, what we're left with is this space where we have to figure out how to be inclusive, even if we're not going to be affirming of anything. Inclusive in the sense that God wants us to love well, he wants us to do this, but we don't have to affirm what they're doing. I don't have to agree with you, and we have such a jacked-up definition of love in our culture. Love has become this blind acceptance. We just accept everything. Just everything. We just accept it. You just have to accept it. I don't love you if I don't accept it, which is hogwash. I can love you perfectly without ever agreeing with what you're doing, by the way, welcome to marriage. (Congregation laughs) Now, hopefully sometimes you agree. The relationship forces this tension, it just does. In human relationships, but also our relationship with God. What we try to do is we try to read the Bible and we pick a few verses that we like, and we cherry pick it. Then we think we’ve solved God, which is one of the fundamental critiques that Jews have of Christians. They think our God is too small. You know, if you could ever solve God in any one single point, he's too small. We don't want that because then we have to open the possibility that we've got to keep pressing into relationship and relationship is messy. It's hard.

However, that's what righteousness is. Remember we talked about this last week and this is going to come up again in this passage whenever we get to it. Righteousness isn't just the keeping of the rules. Righteousness -- Tzedakah -- is right-standing in relationship, right-standing in relationship with God and right-standing in relationship with people. That's what it is. So, is following the rules a piece of that? Absolutely! It's also all about how we treat people. I was hanging out with my dear friends at the Treasure House this last week. We had this conversation around this topic and one of the gals, it was awesome. One of the gals is like, “So what you're saying is, it's not about how short your skirt is”. Now think about it, it's kind of funny on the surface, but think about that. We're trying to figure out if righteous is trying to figure out how long or short your skirt can be. That's not righteousness. Righteousness is how you treat somebody when they walk through the doors of the church with the skirt that you think is too short.  That's the law. If we don't figure that out, then what we do is try to become a bunch of truth bullies. Is it any wonder that the church gets shoved into obscurity? I don't want you to bully me with your truth. I don't have a problem having a conversation about it, but you don't get to be a jerk.

Now we're going to actually get into the Bible. (Congregation laughs) This is the guts of what Jesus is saying in Matthew 5. He's going to say it over and over and over again, but we're going to read verses 17 to 20. Here's what it says, “Do not think that I've come to abolish the law and the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them”. Now, we don't always know what to make out of these words. So let me explain these to you contextually because context matters! Exclamation point! Always, okay? When a rabbi is teaching his talmidim, his students, in the course of the conversation, he'll bring up a scripture and ask a question about it. You as the student, as the talmidim,  will begin to answer that question and you better answer it with text, not with your own ideas, because who cares, what your thoughts are. We want to know the word of God. His thoughts are what matter, right? This is how they think. So, you answered with the text. Now, if you answer it well, the rabbi will say, “You have fulfilled Torah”! But if you answer it poorly, he will say, “You have abolished Torah!”. To which we go, wow, that's a self-esteem check. They don't care. They don't care about your self-esteem. They care about the word of God. That's what matters. Does that make sense? That's the part that gets them. So, Jesus is using this rabbinic language. He's saying, “I'm not trying to do the wrong thing. I'm not being honest with the rules that you guys are Cherry-Picking. I'm trying to set them back into the broader context of how the law is supposed to be lived out”. It's the answer for them in the first century, and by the way, it's the answer for you and I today. It's not about the truth we carry, it's about how we walk it out. “He did not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them for truly, I tell you until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter and not the least stroke of a pen will by any means, disappear from the law until everything is accomplished”. He's talking about the smallest parts of the Hebrew alphabet. It's a dot, it's one dot, not even one, it’s a blip. “Not even one will disappear from the law until when, until heaven and earth pass away”. Until then, the law's not going anywhere. “Therefore, anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and  teaches others accordingly will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For, I tell you that, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven”. This is the struggle that they're thinking, what? Because the Pharisees keep the rules so well. What Jesus is saying is righteousness isn't just about keeping the rules. It's about the context in which we do that. Are we in right-standing with other people and with God? The truth is we see example after example in the Old Testament of times when they're keeping the rules and God's says, “I don't even like your new moon festivals. I don't even listen when you pray, because when you do that, you're doing it completely outside of the right context”. So why does Jesus say we need the law? Let's talk about that. The law is this really interesting thing, 613 commands in Torah that God gives us. They tell us how we're supposed to live our life. Now that’s more or less applicable to you and I, but there's a whole conversation around which ones should apply and which ones shouldn't, and that's another sermon for another day. Good news, you can still eat it bacon. Which is the most important one that people care about.

However, the law God gives us as a way to live in the world. If we live in alignment with the law, we are properly stewarding and managing creation, okay? Creation is designed to function a certain kind of way. It optimally functions in a certain kind of context, and the laws that are given to us help us steward it within that context. Now the question becomes, why is creation designed to function this way and not some other way? Here's why. Think about this, and this has massive implications for why and how we parent, like why you set the rules you set. If your rules for your kids are, “Because I'm the parent and you're not”. That statement, and I get it, because sometimes you don't have the energy to fight. You just say, “I'm the parent and you're not, so go away”. If that's your go-to, that worked fine until they move out of your house, and you haven't set them up for success, in that context. Why do we set the rules that we set? Well, they ought to be consistent with why God sets the rules that he sets. Why does God set the rules that he sets? Is it just 613 ways for him to control us? Is that what this is? He's just trying to be the boss of you? Well, think about it. Why don't we steal? I mean, here's the thing, I want your stuff. I should take it. What’s the problem with that? I mean, you should be okay with that because I really wanted it. What's the problem with stealing? Here's the problem with stealing, God is generous. So, stealing is against his nature. How about this one? Don't commit adultery. Why? We live in an indulgent culture, right? Everything that you want to eat, eat it. You want to nap? Nap. You want to be lazy? Be lazy. You want to buy something? Buy it. You don't have the money? Buy it on credit. You can't pay off your credit? File bankruptcy. Who cares? Just do whatever you want. We live in this indulgent culture. If you want to step outside of your marriage? Why not? Here's why because God is love, and it's an absolute act of betrayal of that love, both to your spouse and to the person you're engaging in the affair with, to do anything different. It is never an act of love for you to ask somebody to step outside of God's guidelines for them, ever. That's not loving. I don't care what you feel. That's not loving. So, the rules that God gives us, these 613 rules, laws, and commands of Torah. These are there to reveal to us God's nature because God's nature is consistent with how he created the world to function. So, when we understand God's character, his nature, then we understand how to live in the world, not how to believe what's right and what's wrong only, but how to live in the world. So, we live in the world in a way that’s consistent with God's character. In other words, if you want to be part of the kingdom of God, your fundamental task, number one, is to put your God on display. It's not about what we believe. It's about how we live. You can have all the belief about Jesus in the world, but if you're going to be a jerk in the community, it doesn't work.

Paul says something really interesting in Galatians 3 about the law, and I want to read it. Here's what it says, “So, the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian”. Let's talk about this word, guardian. The Greek word is the word “pedagogue”, which has become over the centuries, kind of attached to somebody that's a teacher, but like a droning boring, just get to the point, right? It's not really what a pedagogue is. A pedagogue is more like a Mary Poppins, maybe they'd be a little bit more strict than that. If you think about somebody who moves into your life as a protector and a teacher. They teach you reading, writing, and arithmetic. They teach you these education fundamentals, but they also teach you life skills, like hygiene and work ethic and all these other things that come along with how we live life. So, the pedagogue does all of it. The pedagogue really becomes the protector and the covering that helps you figure out how to get into life. Eventually, you grow to the age where you graduate and move out on your own, right? So, you don't need the pedagogue anymore. That's what Paul is describing here. The law was a pedagogue when we were still learning about who God was and what he's like. We needed a pedagogue. Then we became adults, and we had a better reason for following Christ, because we love him. Not because we're afraid of being punished. Here's the thing. There's a lot of people that say yes to Jesus either because they want to get into heaven or because they want to get out of hell, and to be honest with you, I don't care why you start your relationship with Jesus. You just need to get started in it. However, if 5 or 10 years down the road, you're still at that space, that's a problem. What we find is we actually walk with Jesus, not out of a fear of punishment, that gets us to say yes to Jesus. It's how good he is and how much his plan is amazing and how incredible it is to be a part of serving him. Like, it's way more gooder. (Pastor being silly with congregation, congregation laughing) Again, I don't want to get all technical on you, pretty basic sermon. Now that faith has come, we're no longer under the guardian. We don't need this rigidity anymore. So, what should it look like? Well, here's what Jesus says in Matthew 22, and this is not a new passage. You'll be very familiar with it. “They ask him what's the greatest commandment”, right? So, here's what he says. He says, “Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All The law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” All the rules, all the boundaries, all the expectations. They're all fulfilled in love God and love people. Which sounds a lot like Tzedakah -- It sounds a lot like righteousness and right-standing with people and in right-standing with God. If we're loving God well, what they were trying to do in Jesus's world was they're trying to keep the rules to say, “God, we love you. God, we love you.” The reason was because they didn't want to go back into slavery. They were afraid of God's punishment. What he's saying is, but you're treating people wrong. So, you're not even actually doing the rules right.

All of the law is covered in these two commands: love God and love people. Again, that's not a blind acceptance. Think about this. So, I have four kids. My oldest daughter was up here singing over here this morning. It just melts my heart to see her worship. When she was three, she's out in the street. If I were to say, “But I love her. I have to accept where she's at.” That's a cause to call CPS! Love isn't accepting people where they're at, love is doing what's in their best interest, whether they like it or not. (Congregation clapping) Now, that being said, doesn't mean I get to do that thing in an unkind way. We go back to this; we need to figure out how to be inclusive of people because they have dignity and they're human. They are image bearers of God Most High. No matter where they come from or what their walk of life is or what color their hair is or how many tattoos they have. Nobody cares about any of that stuff. When they come through the door, they're an image bearer of God, so they belong. That doesn't mean we have to affirm. It doesn't mean I have to agree. So, we can be inclusive, but not affirming. We have to hold those two things in tension. I think that's God's kingdom. That's what we have to figure out how to do well. I'll tell you this, you will never figure out how to do that well, by yourself. It takes us being in community to figure out how to do that well, because in everybody's perspective, we get a rounded-out picture of the heart of God for people, right? Here's what I know God doesn't want. When the church points a finger and goes, your sin is disgusting, but we won't look in the mirror and say the same thing. I don't think God has any patience for that.

What Paul says in 1 Timothy is, “Here's a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: God came to save sinners of which I am the worst.” We have to stop trying to figure out where everybody else is wrong, and I have the rules to prove it. What we have to do is have everything that we believe held in the bubble of loving God and loving people. All the law, and all the profits, hang on those two things. If we don't get those two things right, then I don't care what rules you have. You cannot honor God.

 So many applications for this, so many implications. I would love to talk for hours. We don't have any place else to be do we? I'd love to talk for hours about what this means for the church and culture. We keep trying to call people back to the rules, but we're not changing ourselves. The problem for God moving in our culture, isn't people who don't believe in him. When Jesus goes to Nazareth, it says that he was prevented from doing very many miracles because of their lack of faith. Well, who's they? They're the God followers. They're not pagans. They're not evil. These are people who went to church every Sunday and read their Bible and knew the word at a level that none of us in here will ever know it, including me. These people were diligent about the study of the word of God. They lived for the church. They lived for the law. They lived for it. It was their lack of faith that prevented Jesus from doing miracles! The problem in our world isn't that non-Christians are acting like non-Christians, it's that Christians aren't acting like Jesus. It doesn't matter your truth if it's not in the bubble of loving God and loving people. It doesn't mean we compromise. We don't have to affirm, but if you're going to be a resident in the kingdom of God, you do have to be inclusive. It's the way it works. Jesus hangs out with tax collectors, to which we go, that's not a big deal, but we all got tax collectors in our life. You won't call them a tax collector, you call them by another name, but you pick the one you want. We've all got them. And Jesus says those people. Those are the ones that we have to love the way that God loves us.

So, some implications. Number 1: God's laws are a gift that open up the fullest life possible. God doesn't come to us and go, “Hey, I'm going to give you a bunch of rules that will allow you to live life at 60%, because I really don't want you to enjoy that other 40%.” Now Jesus said, “I came that you might have life and have life to its fullest.” That's his desire for you and I. Number 2: For Christians, the law teaches us who God is and what he's like. So, we need to wrestle with that and how we even talk to and about other people. Are we doing that consistent with the character of God, or are we even considering that when we talk to people in the community? Do we look or even act anything like God? Number 3: It's just a question and will be a great wrestling match for your life groups this week, because it's a good one. Are you willing to renew your covenant with God? Here's what I mean by that. When we say “yes” to Jesus, we have a certain framework for what we think that's going to mean, right? Some of those things are accurate, but all of it is limited, right? So, as we grow through our relationship with God, what happens is the understanding of God grows and expands and it gets bigger. It's like, “Oh, my word! I didn't understand that, and I didn’t realize that. This meant that.” Our call and the things that God asked us to step into feels hard. We can be unsure and think this is not what I signed on for. I signed on for the pearly gates and streets of gold. I didn't sign on for, I have to be kind to my neighbor, who's yelling at me across the fence. That's hard. I don't want to do hard things. I want to do heaven. Every time that we hit those crossroads where we say, “Oh, I didn't realize it meant that, I didn't realize it meant that.” Those aren’t evil places. Those are moments for us to say, “God, I want to renew my relationship with you. I want to renew my commitment to being in covenant with you.”

So, what we're going to do is we're going to take communion together and we take it together every week. But right now, we're going to do it. If you're new with us, we have an open table here. That means that anybody who is willing to celebrate the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus with us is invited to partake. We want you to hold those elements and we'll take them all together.

Here's the thing. Is it time for us to consider, what does it mean in my life to renew this covenant with God? It's hard and it's messy business. As we look at our culture, it's hard to know how to do it well. Where are all the boundaries and where do we put our foot down and where do we stay silent? Where do we speak? It's just complex. That's why we need one another. It's one of the reasons why life groups are so important. Because it allows us to be able to be in the space of having a conversation around these real issues that are going on. Maybe as we prepare our hearts for communion, this would be an opportunity for us to check in and say, “Jesus, I'm reminding myself right now of the sacrifice that you made, and I just want you to know I'm recommitting myself in areas that maybe I've fallen short, maybe I've let things slide. Maybe I haven't taken things as seriously as I should, but right now I'm back.” Let's take a minute and talk with the Lord as we prepare our hearts for communion.

On the night Jesus was betrayed. He took bread and he broke it. He said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Whenever you eat this bread, do it in remembrance of me.” Let's remember him this morning. After the dinner, he took a cup and he said, “This cup, this is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you. Whenever you drink this cup, doing it in remembrance of me.”

Let's pray. “Lord, we love you. And we thank you for this incredible gift that you've given us through your word to help us understand your character. God, we thank you for your rules, knowing that they're for our good and to help us understand who you are. And Lord I just pray that you would give us grace for a culture that doesn't understand you. And a big for that is because the church at large has not represented you accurately. God call us to that accurate space, regardless of what it means. And regardless of what we have to let go of. Thank you, God for your forgiveness, in your name. Amen.

Let's stand and sing one more song.

I know that it's really important for us to be people who understand the mind of God. And that's true. We don't ever want to lose the mind of God, but this week I want to challenge us to be people who live out the heart of God for people. Don't lose the mind of God but live out the heart of God for people. And if you're struggling with that, or if you need to pray with somebody, there's some folks that are up here to pray with you. They'd be happy to do that, or you can pray and the prayer room alone, or with somebody there. But may we be people as we leave here this week, who live out the heart of God, to the people around us. Thanks for coming. Have a great week.