Matthew chapter five and verse
20, the righteousness of God's law. Now, in the last message,
I concluded with verse 20. And I wanted to start the message
today with that same verse. Because this verse is so pivotal,
not only in the Sermon on the Mount, but as it pertains to
the whole of God's word. And this is where Christ, after
he had spoken of his mission, to keep the law. He didn't come
to break the law or to destroy the law, he came to keep the
law. The Bible says he was made of a woman, made under the law
to redeem them that were under the law. And that redemption
could only take place by his law keeping, satisfying the justice
of God on our behalf as our surety, our substitute, our redeemer,
having our sins charged to him, and that righteousness that he
worked out that God has charged to all of his chosen people from
the foundation of the world. And so he says here, for I say
unto you, verse 20, that except your righteousness shall exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall
in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. And of course, what
he's teaching us there is this, basically that We as sinners,
under the law, sinners as we stand in relationship to the
law of God, whatever time it was given or revealed, we are
in need of a righteousness that we cannot produce. And this truth
of righteousness, this reality of righteousness, you all know
this, and I know it, we've preached it for years, and thank God he's
revealed it to us, the revelation. of the righteousness of God.
This is so vital and important to understanding the scriptures,
to understanding salvation, to understanding the gospel. Without
an understanding of the concept, the truth of righteousness in
the scripture, you can't know anything about salvation, about
the gospel. But this righteousness is measured. What most people think of as
righteousness is what they think of as moral behavior. We're gonna
try to do good. We're gonna try to be the best
we can be. And that's human morality. And those are all things we should
strive for. to be the best people we can
be in all ways, in our character, our conduct, our attitude, our
motives. But that is not righteousness
in God's sight. Righteousness is not moral conduct. Righteousness is the standard
by which God measures moral conduct. And righteousness in the Bible,
as you know, is perfect, and I mean perfect, satisfaction
to God's law and justice. And anything short of that is
unrighteousness. It's actually sin. And how does
God measure the standard of righteousness? Well, how many times, I was just
watching the TV program this morning, I quoted it again. Because
it's so important. How that Christ is not only the
judge of all in the end, the righteous Christ, the righteous
servant of God, but he also is the standard of righteousness
by which God measures everybody. And of course that's Acts 1731
that I've got listed here in your lesson. God has appointed
a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance
unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. And
so, that word righteousness is equivalent to justify, justification. And it has to be, it has to do
with being forgiven of all our sins on a just ground. And that's where people go wrong
today. It's where people have always gone wrong. They want
forgiveness of sins, but upon what ground, upon what basis
can a holy and righteous judge forgive us of our sins? That's
the issue. There's got to be a ground upon
which he can do that. He cannot do that arbitrarily.
And he certainly cannot do it in a way that is inconsistent
with his justice. So the question comes, the question
of all questions, how can God be both a righteous judge and
be true to himself, glorify and honor himself, as well as a savior? A just God and a savior. And
of course the answer comes in the gospel of God, wherein the
righteousness of God is revealed. That's the merits of Christ,
obedience unto death, as the surety, the substitute, and the
redeemer of his people. And that's the only ground. I've
told you often about listening to a preacher on TV, a very popular
preacher, and he talked about the ground upon which God forgives
our sins. And he says, I can't remember
his exact words in this way, but he basically said this. that
God forgives us of our sins based upon our repentance. And that
may sound good because we should repent. And God does grant us
repentance. But God has never forgiven one
sin on the ground of our repenting. It's the blood of Jesus Christ
upon which God forgives us of all our sins. And that's the
equivalent of righteousness, his blood, his death. So the
only just ground for us to have a right standing before God to
be forgiven, to be declared righteous in God's sight, is Christ's righteousness
imputed. And I don't ever get tired of
preaching that. And I hope you never get tired
of hearing it. Because that's our hope. That's the hope of
righteousness. Well, the Lord himself described
the complete nature of his whole work upon earth as the fulfillment
of all righteousness. He did that back in Matthew chapter
three when he was baptized. Suffer us to fulfill all righteousness. The Apostle Paul described the
revelation of the gospel as the revelation of the righteousness
of God. And so here, after he stated
that he came to keep the law, not to break it, and remember,
the Pharisees, they accused him of being a lawbreaker because
he exposed their error in their trying to keep the law for righteousness.
But he says here, he said, I didn't come to break the law, I came
to keep it. He came to fulfill all righteousness.
And so, anybody, the Bible teaches us that anybody who's trying
to achieve a standing of righteousness before God by their works, that
they're cursed. Galatians 3.10, cursed is everyone
that continueth not in all things. which are written in the book
of the law to do them. So the Bible declares that the
only way that we can find this righteousness that we need is
in Christ. Look into him, for Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Now,
when he says here the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees,
I think I listed here several scriptures. If you want to know
exactly what that is, that the righteousness of the scribes
and the Pharisees, you can go to Luke 18, that's where, nine
through 14, that's the parable of the Pharisee and the publican.
You remember the Pharisee stood up at the temple and he said,
I thank God I'm not like other men. I tithe, I do this, I do
that, or I don't do this, I don't do that. And so the Pharisee
was pleading the righteousness that he believed that God enabled
him to do. And always remember in that parable,
the Pharisee's prayer, he started out, I thank God. In other words,
he wasn't taking credit for himself. And I always think of that passage
in Matthew 7, here in the Sermon on the Mount, where he talks
about those who stood before him, pleading their works, what
they believed God enabled them to do. that haven't we preached
in your name, haven't we cast out devils, haven't we done many
wonderful works, only to hear him say, depart from me, you
that work iniquity, I never knew you. And then another passage
there, Romans 9, 31 through 10, three, that's where he talks
about how Israel sought after righteousness, but they didn't
find it, because they sought it by works of the law, and not
by Christ. And then another classic passage
that shows you what the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees
was is Philippians 3, verses 4 through 6, where Paul was describing
those things which he thought, before salvation, recommended
him unto God. I was circumcised the eighth
day, a Hebrew of Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, all of
that, as touching the law. And so those passages describe
how we all think by nature. We all think by nature that we
can do something to make ourselves right with God. We can do something
by keeping the law, by trying to do good, by trying to be sincere.
But the Bible says here, as our Lord says, unless your righteousness
exceeds that, you shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven.
So now what he does in beginning at verse 21, he begins showing
them the strictness of the law that brings in all men and women
by nature guilty of sin. So that if you think that you've
kept the law well enough to be declared righteous in God's sight,
Y'all have to excuse me about all this. I'm trying to get over
this cough and cold, so bear with me. But unless you meet
this standard of perfection in the law, then you're a sinner
and have no hope of righteousness by your works. And he starts
off with the sixth commandment. You remember the 10 commandments?
Well, the sixth commandment was the commandment against murder. And listen to what he says. He
says, you have heard, verse 21, you have heard that it was said
by them of old time, thou shalt not kill. And whosoever shall
kill shall be in danger of the judgment. Now that's true. That's forbidding murder. Now
that law was established on Mount Sinai in the Old Covenant, but
it was a law from the beginning. Back over in Genesis chapter
nine and verse six, he speaks of that. When Cain killed Abel,
that was a sin. It did not become a sin at Mount
Sinai. It was always a sin. But it was
codified at Mount Sinai under the Old Covenant law, the Ten
Commandments. So they knew. Thou shalt not
kill, and whoever does is in danger of judgment by the courts
of the land and by the courts of God. Well, most of us have
never committed the outward act of murder, I hope. I hope nobody
in here has done that. Maybe some of us have wanted
to, that's the next verse. We've never committed the act
of murder. Well does that leave us to say that in that particular
commandment I can say I'm righteous? Look at the next verse. Verse
22. But I say unto you that whosoever
is angry with his brother without a cause, that is unjustly, shall
be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his
brother Rekha, which means, as you may have in your concordance
there, vain fellow, means worthless, shall be in danger of the council,
and we'll talk about that in a minute, but whosoever shall
say thou fool shall be in danger of hell fire. Now again, while most of us have
never committed the act of murder, The Lord gives us a full understanding
of this law that brings us all in guilty before God of this
commandment. And he shows how the law forbids
not only the act of murder, but even the thought of anger that
would lead to murder. Wishing somebody dead. And unjustly,
and the reason he says without a cause. And I know when a lot
of people, they read that, say, well, I'm angry, but I've got
a cause. Or I'm justly angry. What he's talking about there
is there is an anger that is not sinful. And the Bible, or
we might say that that's righteous indignation. But we have to be
very careful with that. Because trying to bring our anger
under that umbrella of righteous indignation all the time gets
pretty self Self-accusatory, you might say. Somebody said,
well, I'm angry, but I've got a just cause. Well, what is your
just cause? Well, the kind of anger that
would fall under the heading of righteous indignation is like
a believer being angry at a false preacher for preaching a false
gospel. That's righteous indignation. And that does make you angry,
doesn't it? You think about how many people are deceived by false
gospels, false preachers. The Bible says that God is angry
with the wicked. But God's anger is justice. But
the kind of thing that would fall under the heading of the
sinful anger is any anger that we have that arises from selfishness,
self-righteousness, self-promotion, vengeance. You say, well, I want
to get back at this person who did me wrong. The Bible says
vengeance belongs to the Lord. That's murder. You say, well,
I don't want them dead, I just want them hurt, you know, things
like that. We can justify those things in a lot of different
ways in our minds. But the bottom line is, is that
basically, and I know this seems like a harsh statement, but basically
as to the spirit of the law, maybe not to the letter of the
law, but as to the spirit of the law, we are all murderers. Now that's true. If we've ever
in our lives been angry enough to want a person gone, and then
he goes on like this, this raka here. It means somebody, it's
to call somebody worthless. I've got this in your lesson,
good for nothing. And it's actually in the same
line of murdering a person's reputation. To ruin their good name. And when this happened, there
were laws in the Jewish court that would bring a person up
before the Sanhedrin. And that's what he's talking
about when he says, in danger of the council. Here's what I've
got in your lesson. Those who were guilty of this
sin, and it's public now, were brought before the highest Jewish
court, the Sanhedrin, and judged for this crime. And that often
happened, you know, when somebody openly, by their talk or by their,
by innuendo, hurt somebody else's reputation in the community. But what Christ, the point he's
making here is this. If that sin was recognized by
the Jewish court, how do you think it's recognized by God?
it's equivalent to murder. And then this phrase, thou fool,
it's to call somebody vile and wicked, and like an ungodly wretch
or a graceless soul, even predestined to hell. In other words, it's
like looking at somebody and saying, you're no use, you're
destined to hell, there's no hope for your salvation. Now,
as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, We reject fellowship
of people based upon their confession if their confession is a false
gospel. We do that. And we're commanded to do that.
Second John nine through 11, you know. Those who transgress
and abide not in the doctrine of Christ. And we receive those
who profess the same gospel we believe. All right, but we cannot,
we cannot see into each other's hearts. For example, if a person
believes a false gospel and I cannot have fellowship with them, I
cannot call them reprobate, as if to say there's no hope for
them ever to be saved. What if I had met the Apostle
Paul before he was converted? If anybody in the eyes of man
would have qualified to be a reprobate, it would have been Saul of Tarsus.
And that's what he's talking about. Those who look upon somebody
like the Pharisees, they despised others. I think I quote, I've
got that in your lesson down here somewhere, where they consider
themselves righteous and they despised others. And virtually
they were saying there's no hope of them ever being saved. That's
murder. And that's what he's saying here.
This is the issue. Look at verse 23. He uses a practical
application to this. He says, therefore, if thou bring
thy gift to the altar, now that's worship, and there remembers
that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before
the altar, and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother,
and then come and offer thy gift. When there's a matter between
you and a brother or sister in Christ, and you come to worship,
that's hindering your worship. Take care of that matter because
leaving that alone could lead to this issue of murder. It should well up, it's like
a cancer that grows. It gets worse and worse. Now,
we don't come to a earthly altar, Christ is our altar. but we come
to worship. So consider this in light of
the free grace and mercy of God towards us, that even when we
were enemies, Christ died for us. Even when we were enemies,
God was reconciled to us by his grace and mercy, and therefore
we ought to be reconciled to one another. And if we don't
do that, it hinders us, and it could lead to this issue of murder. In other words, despising a person,
resenting a person to the point that you just assume they'd be
gone. That's how practical this is.
It comes down to this. Before seeking to worship God,
make certain there's no ill will between us and anyone else. Holding
on to grudges, maintaining an angry spirit towards someone
is detrimental to our worship to God. Be forgiving, remembering
that God has, for Christ's sake, forgiven us. That's what the
Bible teaches. I know it's a struggle. I know
it's hard. But there it is. That relationship,
see, can lead to a person coming into this attitude of being so
angry that it falls under the category of murder. That's how
serious this is. Somebody might say, well, you're
being too strict. You're being too hard. I'm just reading the
Bible here. That's what it's all about. Well, one thing we
can see right away is this. We need a righteousness that
we cannot produce. Isn't that right? We're so sinful. And put the icing on the cake. We try to excuse our sins. We don't excuse each other's
sins, but we excuse our own. And that brings resentment, and
it hinders us, hinders our worship. Well, from there, he goes on
to the next one in verse 25. He says, agree with thine adversary
quickly, Oh, verse 24 rather, I'm sorry. Leave there thy gift
before the altar and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother
and then come and offer thy gift. Then come to worship. He's not
talking about qualifying ourselves to worship. He's talking about
removing the hindrances to worship. And he says in verse 25, agree
with thine adversary quickly whilst thou art in the way with
him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge and
the judge deliver thee to the officer and thou be cast into
prison. Now that goes back to the same
thing we were talking about in this murdering somebody's reputation,
how they were actually brought before the court when that happened. And he says in verse 26, Verily
I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence, till
thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. Until you've paid the
letter of the law. We talk about somebody going
to prison, they said, well they paid their debt and then they
come out. We can't pay our debt to God's law and justice. That's
an infinite debt. Aren't you glad Christ paid that
for us? So anyway, that's the practical application, as we
would say, to this thing about how we're to treat each other
in the realm of this commandment. Thou shalt not kill. Don't think
because we haven't committed the act of murder that we haven't
committed murder in that sense. And of course, all of this shows
us our need of that righteousness, which exceeds the scribes and
the Pharisees, the righteousness of Christ. Well, look at verse
27. He says, you've heard that it
was said by them of old, thou shalt not commit adultery. That's
the seventh commandment, I believe. And maybe we haven't committed
the outward act of adultery. But he says, but I say unto you
that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed
adultery with her already in his heart. And that would apply
to women and men too. This is all of us. To desire
in a lustful way another person, a man desiring a woman or a woman
desiring a man, that's adultery. And again, what does that tell
us? It tells us that by nature we're all adulterers. Now thank
God we're forgiven. We're forgiven by the blood of
Christ. But there's no, there's also the sin of spiritual adultery. That comes under this heading
too. That's when we begin our lives worshiping and clinging
to a false god, an idol, that's spiritual adultery. And you know,
Paul in 2 Corinthians 11, He was keenly aware of this when
he told those people, he said, I fear lest Satan, by his subtlety,
take you away from the simplicity that's in Christ, and he followed
it up by saying this, he said, for I've espoused you to one
husband, and that's Christ. There's no other God, there's
no other Savior, there's no other way. And to think that there
is, or to, go to where there is preached another way, that's
adultery. So what is this telling us? Again,
we're all spiritual adulterers. We're all plain adulterers in
that sense. We need a righteousness that
we cannot produce. And so I concluded the lesson
this way. Just like King David, think about
David, who was one who committed both the act of murder, by having
Uriah the Hittite killed, and who committed the act of adultery.
And you could easily see how David could relish the thought
of God's mercy when he said, Lord, if thou, Lord, shouldest
mark iniquities, who would stand? But there is forgiveness with
thee. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.
Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth righteousness
without war. We can enter into that, can't we? Well, that's
what Christ is doing in this as he continues to show the reality
of the law of God and the righteousness of the law of God, which can
only be found in him whom to know is life eternal. Okay.