Introduction
At the risk of annoying those of you who don’t like interactive sermons, I am going to begin by making six statements and I am going to ask you to raise your hand each time if you agree with it and to leave your hand down if you don’t.
It’s not a test. I’m not taking notes. I won’t ask you to defend or explain why you raised or didn’t raise your hand.
But I think it will help you to see how relevant the passage of Scripture we’re looking at today. Is that OK? Here we go.
First statement; I believe that Jesus was really, physically raised from the dead.
Second statement; I am confident that I will be welcomed into heaven when I die.
Third statement; I think reading and studying the Bible is a good thing to do.
Fourth statement, I believe that we should send missionaries to lands that know nothing about our faith.
Fifth statement; I think it is right to give generously to support godly causes and to help alleviate suffering in the world.
And, last statement, I believe that every believer, not just the professionals, should be active in their faith.
Thank you. If you’re wondering why I started with that little straw poll, it’s because Jesus said, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Here’s the link: we know, from the four Gospels, that the Pharisees and teachers of the law would have agreed with at least five, if not all six, of the statements I just read.
Resurrection: Unlike the Sadducees, who were the liberals of the day, the Pharisees believed in the resurrection, like most of us.
Eternity: The Pharisees were very confident that they themselves would attain eternal life, like most of us.
Bible: The Pharisees were very keen readers of Scripture; they learned hundreds of verses by heart and they spent many hours in Bible study groups, much more in fact than most of us do I would guess.
Giving: Our treasurer would love a church full of Pharisees, because they methodically gave a full one tenth of everything they had to God; from their monthly pay cheques to the herbs and spices they grew in their gardens.
Mission: The Pharisees were passionate about spreading their faith; in fact, Jesus acknowledged they would willingly travel over land and sea to win a single convert.
And, finally, contrary to what many people think, the Pharisees were a lay movement – none were ordained priests or professional rabbis. They were, in fact, like most of us.
Just think how amazing King’s would be if it were it filled with Pharisees! Bible-believing, mission-minded, tithing, committed individuals, sure of what they believe and confident of their eternal future.
And yet, I repeat, Jesus said we’ve got to do better than them if we’re going to enter the kingdom of heaven.
We had better read the whole passage. It’s quite a long one this morning and time will not allow us to go into great detail on every verse. We’re picking up from 5.17, and we’ll read to the end of the chapter.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets [or what we call the Old Testament]; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly I tell you, 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. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly 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. 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.
You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift. Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfil to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Culture Clash
You’ve got to give it to the Pharisees; they were amazingly devoted. They were diligent and methodical. And people really respected them as morally upright citizens.
I doubt if there are many Christians who in practice come close to their attention to detail. When it came to living out their faith, they were obsessive about getting it right.
But Jesus was constantly clashing with them. They did not get on at all. What was it about the Pharisees’ approach that made people admire them but, for Jesus, was like a red rag to a bull?
Two things; first, the Pharisees demonstrated spectacularly well that you can observe all Ten Commandments for example, tick all the right boxes and say all the right words, but with a smug and self-congratulating and judgmental heart of stone.
Second, they made it hard and complex and wearying for people to live out their faith. Here’s what they did. They devised a convoluted religious scheme which they called ‘a fence around the law’.
They took the 613 commands from the Law of Moses, and classified them into 248 commandments and 365 prohibitions. Then they wrote thousands of extra rules to make absolutely sure you didn’t accidentally transgress.
By the time Jesus came on the scene, living by faith had become a burdensome treadmill that squeezed every last drop of joy out of everyone.
One big area of concern for them was how to make it ‘easier’ for people to keep the Sabbath holy. Here’s a small sample of what they came up with…
A new lamp could be moved from one place to another on the Sabbath, but not an old one.
Hot food could be kept warm by covering it with clothes, feathers and dried flax but not by covering it with damp herbs or straw (which could engender fresh heat and thus ‘work’ on the Sabbath).
A donkey could go out on the Sabbath day wearing its saddlecloth if this was attached before the Sabbath, but it could not under any circumstances wear a bell, because technically speaking that would make the animal work by ringing it when it moved.
Goats could go out with a protective cloth on their udders provided it was there to keep the udders dry, but not if it was for collecting milk.
And so it went on; literally thousands of directives and procedures like that. It descended into farce at times. But this is how they lived and how they told everyone else to live, 24/7.
You might be thinking, “Yeah, but this is not really an issue for us, is it?” But Pharisee thinking easily worms its way into in the church.
A couple of weeks ago we had a friend round for dinner and she was telling us that her dad was grumbling and complaining about a man who had turned up to church in shorts just that week. But it was a hot June day! And there’s no verse in the Bible that says, “thou shalt not sing to the Lord thy God in shorts.” Where did that man get the idea from that this was somehow out of order?
Here’s another example I read about recently: I tried and failed to trace the source, so I'm not 100% sure this is a true story actually, but I did find it amusing.
A pastor in Canada woke up one Sunday morning to find the roads were blocked by heavy snow that had fallen overnight, so he was forced to skate on a frozen river to get to church on time. When he arrived, the deacons were horrified that their preacher - a man of God - had actually been skating on the Lord's Day. I mean, of all the unacceptably worldly ways of transporting yourself to the house of the Lord!
So aggrieved were they, that they held an emergency meeting that afternoon where the pastor had to explain that it was a choice between skating to church or not getting there at all. Finally, one of the deacons asked, “Did you enjoy skating to church?” And when the preacher answered, “No,” everyone breathed a sigh of relief and said that was all right then!
Anyway, Jesus says, v20, that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law or we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. What does he mean? Does he mean that if they obey 50 commandments in one day, we have to obey at least 100? No, that’s not what he means.
John Stott, in his commentary, writing about the entire passage we read earlier, puts it this way; “Christian righteousness is greater than pharisaic righteousness because it is deeper, being a righteousness of the heart.”
Six Case Studies
For the rest of this chapter Jesus zones in on six areas which might look slightly random to us but it’s because, as well as the sabbath, it’s where the Pharisees and teachers of the law were most egregiously leading people astray.
They were creating traditions and fine print and clauses and subclauses and (when it suited them) convenient exemptions to avoid the clear challenge of Scripture.
Each time Jesus begins by saying, “You have heard that it was said” or something similar, and each time he follows it with the words, “but I say to you.”
It is vital that we understand that Jesus is not contradicting Scripture here. He is not saying, “The Bible says, but I don’t agree with that, so I’m going to ditch it and replace it.”
Whenever Jesus refers to Scripture he never says “it was said,” but rather “it is written.” So Jesus never says, for example, “It is written, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ but I say to you, oh go on, it’s OK really.”
Jesus’ quarrel is not with Scripture, the Old Testament; it’s with tradition. It’s with the way religious people take God’s word, and add to it, and twist it, and make it fit their agenda.
The six things Jesus highlights here are murder, adultery, divorce, honesty, revenge and attitude to enemies. What does Jesus do? In each case, he affirms God’s word as authoritative and he applies it at a deeper level.
You see, Jesus is interested not just the action itself but in the attitude that leads to it. Because God does not consider outward appearances, but he looks at the heart.
Let’s run through these briefly.
Murder (v21-26): so for Jesus, the fact that I haven’t actually violently ended someone’s life does not make me a good person if I’m always seething with hatred and full of contempt.
Adultery (v27-30): for Jesus, the fact that I haven’t literally slept with a woman who is not my wife does not make me a faithful husband if I am constantly and deceitfully drooling over lustful fantasies.
Divorce (v31-32): people were treating their marriage covenant like ordering something off Amazon; send it back and pay nothing if you change your mind. The Pharisees were leading the charge for quickie divorces, for no real reason, leaving their wives poverty stricken.
To Jesus, marriage vows are sacred and divorce is usually painful and destructive, so if my heart is right, I should only consider it reluctantly when there has been a serious breach of trust, like in the case of unfaithfulness.
Oaths (v33-37): for Jesus, if your heart is right, you don’t have to multiply words like, “I’ll be totally honest with you,” or “No word of a lie” or “I swear on my mother’s grave, cross my heart and hope to die.”
When people speak that way - have you noticed? - it’s usually a signal that whatever follows should be treated with extreme scepticism. If I have a truthful heart and have built up a track record of honesty, I won’t need to work hard at begging people to believe me.
Retaliation (v38-42): for Jesus, if your heart is right, you won’t be constantly fixated about getting revenge. If you fight fire with fire, you just get a bigger fire. That’s why the Proverb says, ‘a kind word turns away wrath.’
And love (v43-48): for Jesus, if your heart is right, you’ll find the Holy Spirit can help you to accept and love difficult and annoying people, not just those who are attractive and easy to like.
So in all these aspects of life Jesus seems to be asking, “never mind the cloths under your goat's udders, what is your heart like?”
God’s Law – A Light
I once heard about a building project for a large church in the USA. When it was complete, the time came for the inspection before signing off the work.
They met the builder in the main auditorium and it looked immaculate. They had done a fantastic job.
But someone on the church’s building committee had brought in bright halogen lights to project onto the ceiling plaster.
And when he switched these lights on, suddenly all the bumps, all the hairline cracks and small imperfections, not visible in normal lighting conditions, became apparent.
The builders had to go through the fine print on the contract to point out that it expressly stipulated that additional lighting was not admissible in determining the quality of the work!
The Ten Commandments are like turning on a bright light to show how dirty your living room is. That’s why Jesus says in v17, “I haven’t come to abolish the law”.
It’s really helpful, necessary even, to be able to see dirt and dust in your room. That’s why Jesus says in v18, “Not one dot of an “i”, not one cross of a “t” will disappear from the law until kingdom come.”
God’s law can show me how dirty my room is. But it is not the mop and bucket that clean up the mess. For that, we need Jesus.
Some years ago, I was responsible for running Alpha courses in a local church. It was so wonderful seeing people come to faith in Christ through this simple but powerful introductory course to Christianity.
One September, we welcomed a woman who told us she had been trying unsuccessfully for a baby for 14 years. Hormone injections and IVF did not work. When she reached 40, the doctors ended her treatment and told her she was now too old and that she should forget it.
The following autumn, another woman told us she had had an abortion when she was a teenager and there had been complications, making subsequent attempts to conceive and carry a child impossible her.
Both women had gone through painful break-ups. Both came to the church in shame and desperation. Both came to faith in Christ on the Alpha course. Both were baptised in the Holy Spirit on the ‘away day’ halfway through the course.
Both told me through tears a few months later that they were pregnant. In fact, according to our calculations, both may well have become pregnant the night they returned home from the Holy Spirit day. And both gave birth to healthy babies (one boy and one girl) the following August.
The Pharisees would probably have lectured these women about the rights and wrongs of the choices they made and ostracised them. In fact, both women came to a point of regret and repentance for mistakes they had made in the past.
But Jesus didn’t leave those two women broken-hearted and shamed. He brought forgiveness and a new heart and healing and blessing. Isn’t that just like him?
And, at the end of the day, our righteousness is not the fussy, exacting and impossible standard of the Pharisees and teachers of the law. It is the perfect righteousness of Christ that God wants to give us as a free gift when we come to him in faith.
Ending
I am going to close by coming back to where I started. Does your righteousness surpass that of the Pharisees?
If you are in the habit of reading the Scriptures, as they were, is Bible study just a weary intellectual exercise or does it lead you to Jesus himself, the life of whom the word speaks?
If you give money, as they did - 10% of their income - do you do it out of unhappy obligation, and not a penny over? Has tithing become like a tax on faith? Or are you blessed to give freely and generously and cheerfully, praising God for the way he just makes what’s left go further?
As for the Pharisees’ mission focus, is the message of my life about the good news of grace – or the bad news of religion?
And finally, if you raised your hand for my second statement (I am confident that I will be welcomed into heaven when I die) how blessed you are, because it’s so good to have assurance of salvation.
But if you didn’t raise your hand, if you aren’t really sure about where you stand with God, if you yet don’t know for sure that you will be in heaven when you die, take a step of faith today. Make that decision and settle it in your heart before you leave this place.
Let me lead you in a prayer...
Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 6 August 2023
