Pray with me, please. Gracious and merciful Father,
Lord, enable me, I pray, to preach Christ to your people today.
Enable me to show them from your Word why they need Christ. Create
in us, Lord, a clean heart. Hearts that love God and love
our neighbors as ourselves. Open our minds, dear Father,
to the understanding of Christ. that we might know in our hearts
that without Christ we can do nothing. And then, Lord, draw
us to Christ, that we might live our lives in our Savior's perfection,
trusting in Him and in His shed blood to wash us clean from all
of our uncleanliness. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Open your Bibles, please, to
Matthew 5. In verse 21, It may seem like a foolish question
to some of you. Well, I want to ask you very
seriously, why do we need Christ? Think about it. Why do we need
Christ? The answer to that may be obvious
to you because you know that everything that we need is in
Christ. He is the source of all things that we need. But the
most important reason, I think, that we need Christ is because
we have all broken God's law. And so we all need a Savior.
And Jesus Christ is the only name by which we can be saved.
And yet, that's only the beginning of why we need Christ, isn't
it? In Matthew 5, verses 21-48, Jesus is teaching. He's teaching
His disciples. He's teaching us about the law
of God. I can't read these verses myself without having painful
feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness and a deep constriction for my
sin. Is that true of you? I pray that it is because the
truth is that none of us measure up to the standard that is set
before us in the law of God. And we all, every single one
of us, needs a Savior. In these 28 verses that we're
looking at this morning, our Lord Jesus Christ shows us that
grace, when it is experienced in the heart, makes people gracious. Just as the sin in our hearts
makes us sinners. So these verses deserve our closest
attention because a proper understanding of the lessons that they contain
lies at the very root of all true Christianity. Our Lord teaches
us in these verses about the spirituality of God's holy law. In verse 17 and 18 of Matthew
5, Christ declared that He came not to destroy the law, but to
fulfill it. And that's exactly what He did. What a blessing it is to know
that Christ is both our law surety and our law fulfiller. And as
such, He has become the Lord our righteousness, And Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth, as
Romans 10.4 says. Our Lord, our Savior, explains
to us here in these verses that His gospel does nothing to lower
the standard of God's law. But His gospel only magnifies
and honors the law. For the Jews in Jesus' day and
to the self-righteous religious people of our day The law of
God is nothing more than a standard of moral conduct. The law for
them is a list of regulations and rules of life and behavior.
So by keeping the law, they think that they can earn their way
into heaven. But they're sadly mistaken. Because
that's not Christ's view of the law. And so our Lord, speaking
to us and to His disciples, selected three commandments from God's
law that deal with murder, adultery, and taking God's name in vain.
He selected those to expound on them and to show us that the
law requires more than outward conformity to the law. I pray
that you can see and that you can understand that the law of
God requires inward spiritual perfection. The law requires
perfection in our hearts Perfection in our thoughts. Perfection in
our minds as well is outward perfection. In Matthew 5, verses
21 and 22, Jesus said to His disciples, you have heard that
it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not kill. And whoever
shall kill shall be in danger of judgment. But I say unto you,
Jesus says, that whosoever is angry with his brother without
a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment, and whosoever shall
say to his brother, Rokkah." Rokkah is a very strong, strong
word. Whoever shall say to his brother,
Rokkah, shall be in danger of the counsel. But whosoever shall
say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. We all know the
commandment of God says, thou shall not kill. But what most
people don't know is that this commandment requires more of
us than just not committing an actual murder. Jesus is saying
that this commandment forbids all unjustified anger. It forbids
all malice and all ill will. And it even forbids cruel and
mean-spirited speech. Many people who would cringe
at the thought of killing a chicken by wringing its neck are mass
murderers at heart. They're mass murderers because
they kill thousands with their angry words. And what's much
worse, it's much worse by an indescribable measure, which
is much worse is unbelief. Unbelief, rebellion, and sin
are nothing less than the outworking of the enmity of a man's heart.
And I mean particularly enmity against God. Unbelief is nothing
less than the murder of God Himself in the heart of man. You begin
to see why you need a Savior. Which of us hasn't committed
murder in his heart by being angry? And going back to our
text in Matthew 5, verses 23 and 24, Jesus said, Therefore
thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remember us that thy
brother hath aught 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." You see, our gifts to God won't
save us. Only Christ can save us. Jesus was saying, if you bring
a gift to the altar of God, because you've murdered your brother
in your heart, then first be reconciled to your brother. Our
Savior is teaching us that the grace of God working in a believer's
heart by faith does what the law can never do. God's grace
actually causes people to love each other. The law requires
that we love one another, but the law can't ever produce love. Turn to Galatians 5 and verses
22 and 23, please. In fact, as the Pharisees and
the self-righteous have clearly attested to, they attest to it
by their conduct, those who claim to live by the law usually give
evidence to the judgmental hatred that our Lord has just condemned.
Listen to this carefully and I pray that you'll understand
it. Those who give up all of their hopes of making themselves
righteous by keeping the law And those who trust Christ alone
for their righteousness are taught by the Spirit of God to love
each other. One, when you are shown by God
the extent of your sin, and also you're shown the mercy of God
in Christ to you, then how can you then find fault with your
brother for his sin? When you're nothing but a sinner
yourself, How can you judge or criticize anybody else? That was Paul's experience in
Galatians 5, verses 22 and 23, when Paul said, The fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, and peace, and longsuffering, gentleness,
and goodness, and faith, meekness, and temperance. Against such
there is no law. Can you see that in a very practical
way, when the Holy Spirit of God shows you that you are a
sinner, It shows you that even you're the chief of sinners.
And then He shows you mercy in Christ. Doesn't that tend to
give you love and joy and peace and long-suffering and gentleness
and goodness towards your brother? Well, it does if the faith of
Christ is working in you. It does if the faith of Christ
is working in your heart. In this Gospel age, we don't
have a physical altar This table right here, up here in front
of the church, that isn't an altar. It's only a table. We serve the Lord's Supper from
it, and it's kept there for convenience, but it isn't an altar. Because
as Hebrews 13 verse 10 says, we have an altar whereof we have
no right to eat, which serveth the tabernacle. Our altar is
Jesus Christ. we have no other altar than Jesus
Christ. And we will not bow before any
other altar than Jesus Christ. And so as we bring our gifts
and our sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving to our God,
we bring them by Jesus Christ. And then as we recall some offense
which we have given to a brother, believers, men and women who
walk in the Spirit and so fulfill the law of Christ, Believers
seek to be reconciled to the one that they have offended.
Their reconciliation when it's done in love is an evidence of
a true and a sweet union in Christ. And all who are in Christ are
one with Christ and they're one with one another. We not only
love Christ, but we love one another. So that when we come
to Jesus Christ in adoration and love and worship, we come
with love for our brothers. and we come forgiving his sin
as Christ has forgiven us. We come because we are one in
Christ. It's our self-righteousness that
takes away our love. As Robert Hawker said about Christ,
his members come to him as the head and bring with them by faith
the whole body of Christ in their arms to the Lord. So in John
17, 21, Jesus prayed that they all might be one as thou, Father,
art in me and I in thee. And that they also may be one
in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And as
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12, verses 25 to 27, that there should
be no schism, there should be no division in the body, but
that the members should have the same care one for another.
And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.
Or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.
Now you are the body of Christ and members in particular. Turn
please to Exodus 20 and verses 24 to 26. As I think about what Jesus is
saying here to His disciples and what He's saying to us in
Matthew 5, I believe that our Savior was showing us the demands
of God's holy law and showing us as well our complete inability
to meet those demands. Because the Holy Spirit has taught
every true believer that in himself he can't keep the law and that
we can't come to God except that we come to God by that one sacrifice
on the altar that God has made, which is Jesus Christ, our sacrifice
for sin. Yes, Christ Jesus is our altar. And we are all brothers in Christ
as we come to Christ. In Exodus 20, verses 24-26, God
said to Moses, An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and
shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings,
thy sheep, and thine oxen. And in all places where I record
my name, I will come unto thee. and I will bless thee. And if
thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it
of hewn stone, for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast
polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps
unto mine altar, that thy nakedness, thy sin, be not discovered thereon."
And then turn ahead to Exodus 25 and verse 22 where God said, and there at the altar who is
Christ or a picture of Christ, and there I will meet with thee,
and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from
between the two cherubs, which are upon the ark of the testimony
of all things, which I will give thee in command unto the children
of Israel." Now turn to 1 Corinthians 1 and verses 18 to 25. That altar the blood sacrifices and the
mercy seat, which is on the Ark of the Covenant, between the
two cherubs, were all pictures of Christ. And we are made able
to come to God only by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sin.
And yet the brother, that brother which we have offended above
all others, is God our Savior. Jesus Christ is that brother
with whom we have been angry without cause. Unbelief is despising
God and despising the Son of God, saying to Him, Raca, or
thou fool. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1,
verses 18-25, For the preaching of the cross is to them that
perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the
power of God. For it is written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding
of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For
after that and the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew
not God. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require
a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ
crucified. under the Jews, a stumbling block,
and under the Greeks, foolishness. But under them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom
of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and
the weakness of God is stronger than men. And in 1 John 5, verse
10, the Spirit of God says, He that believeth on the Son of
God has the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath
made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave
of his Son. When God shows us that we're
nothing but sinners, it takes away our pride. It takes away
our self-righteousness. And it causes us to turn to Christ. We turn to Christ when God takes
away all of our self-righteousness because we need a Savior. I pray
you can hear what our Lord is telling us. Under the law, we
are unable to come to God. There is no coming to God until
we are reconciled to Him in and by Jesus Christ who is our sacrifice
for sin. Only when we are reconciled to
Jesus Christ as our only atonement for sin, our only righteousness,
and our only redemption, only then can we come to God. But
once we are reconciled to Christ who is our spiritual brother,
Once we trust Christ alone for our acceptance with God, we may
and we can and we do come to God, not by our own works, but
by the merits of Christ. And God accepts us and God accepts
our gifts by the merits and only by the merits of His dear Son.
As the Apostle said to believers in 1 Peter 2.5, You also, as
lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to
offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. We sacrifice ourselves when we
cease to trust in ourselves and trust only in Christ. Then going
back to Matthew 5, verses 25 and 26 this time, Jesus says
to His disciples that we should agree with thine adversary quickly
while thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary
deliver to thee the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the
officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee,
Jesus says, thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou
hast paid the uttermost farthing. These are sweet verses Robert
Hawker writes. if they refer to that lawsuit
that we all have by reason of sin and transgression with God.
Yes, our adversary, the devil, seeks to destroy us and many
other adversaries are in league with Satan as adversaries to
our souls. It's good to try to quiet them
and live peaceably as much as possible with such men. But it
is utterly impossible for us to agree with such adversaries
or to persuade them to agree with us. And so I think that
it isn't what our Lord is talking about when he talks about our
adversary. It's not Satan. And it's not
those who would be adversaries against us in this world. No,
our Lord must be speaking about something else or about someone
else. Because an adversary is not always someone who is intent
on hurting or ruining us. In Exodus 23, verse 22, the Lord
our God declares, I will be an adversary to thine adversaries. And in Lamentations 2, verse
4, God is represented as an adversary to us in the day of our sorrow. As an adversary, the Lord God
has a legal proceeding. He has a legal lawsuit with his
people. He has that lawsuit because of
our sin. We have broken God's law and
we deserve to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
And so here in Matthew 5, verse 25, our blessed Savior, our advocate,
our lawyer, the Lord Jesus Christ, tells us to make up the breach
quickly while we are in the way with him. I hear God saying to
sinners, be reconciled to God quickly by Christ. who is himself
the way because he is the only way of reconciliation. Jesus
Christ is our only peace. As is written about Christ in
Micah 5.5, this man shall be the peace. And as Paul said in
2 Corinthians 5.19, God was in Christ, reconciling the world
unto himself. And in Romans 8, he said, there
is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
But to those sad, those unrepentant souls who live and die in their
rebellion and in their enmity against God, thinking that they
are more righteous than their brothers, Jesus Christ will soon
be their judge. And it is into this judge's hands
that the ungodly will be delivered to their eternal punishment for
their crimes. In John 5, verse 22, Jesus said,
For the Father judges no man, but hath committed all judgment
unto the Son. And as 1 Peter 4, verse 5 asks,
Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick
and the dead? Jesus Christ is our adversary
to all of those who do not come to God in Him. Jesus Christ who
is that one great judge will send His angels to execute His
wrath against His enemies. In Matthew 13, verses 41 and
42, the Spirit of God tells us that the Son of Man shall send
forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all
things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall
cast them into a furnace of fire, and there shall be wailing and
gnashing of teeth. The prison into which they shall
be cast forever is the place of everlasting darkness, and
torment, and separation from God, and it's called hell, and
it's called the lake of fire. As 2 Peter 2 verse 4 says, God
spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell and
delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto
judgment. And in Revelation 20 verse 15
it says that whosoever was not found written in the book of
life, was cast into the lake of fire. If that doesn't tell
you that you need a Savior, I don't know what possibly would. Without Christ. Without Christ,
we will all be found wanting. We'll all be found in hell. And
it is an absolutely sure thing in our future if we are without
Christ. Then in Matthew 5, verses 27-33,
Jesus continues to teach him. He's teaching his disciples and
he's teaching us and he says to them, he says to us, ye have
heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit
adultery. But I say unto you, Jesus says,
that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her has committed
adultery. He's committed adultery with
her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee,
pluck it out, and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for
thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy
whole body should be cast into hell. And if the right hand offend
thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee. For it is profitable
for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that the
whole body should be cast into hell. It has been said, Whosoever
shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement.
But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving
for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery.
And whosoever shall marry her that is divorced commits adultery. Again, you have heard that it
has been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear
thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. The law
says thou shalt not commit adultery. But the law requires much more,
much, much more than marital fidelity. Adultery and fornication
are horrible crimes against God and against men. One of the saddest
indications of God's judgment in our society is the freedom
of conscience by which men and women justify their committing
their licentious deeds of immorality. These are abominable evils which
should never be named among God's saints. But our God of mercy
looks beyond our actions, looks to our thoughts and our attitudes
and even to our self-righteous looks. Multitudes of people who
march in protest against pornography run a constant porno shop in
their own evil minds. Yet, should I ask you, Which
one of us is not guilty of the pornography in our very own minds?
I'm not 100% sure about you, but I can't claim with honesty
to be innocent of the charge of adultery. And I suspect that
no one is innocent of this crime against God's law, because the
law of God looks beyond our words and our deeds. The law looks
into the depths of our hearts, and it requires perfection there.
It requires perfection in the inward parts, in the very core
of our being. It requires perfection in our
hearts. All of the actions of the body
are only the outworkings of the heart under the law of God. And so it doesn't matter whether
our continually evil imaginations break out in actual deeds or
not. Because before God's holy, piercing
eyes, the imagination is the deed, and those thoughts and
fantasies and dreams that we all have render us all guilty
before God's holy law. In other words, our Lord is saying
to His disciples that every human being is, by nature, guilty before
God. Paul said it this way in Romans
3.19, he said, Now we know that whatsoever the law saith, it
saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be
stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. The
silliest thing on this earth, I think, must be the idea which
fallen men have, that their keeping themselves from certain acts
of evil constitutes righteousness before God. Turn please to Genesis
20 in verse 6. You know, we all aren't the same
in the evil deeds that we are attracted to in our hearts. We
can all point to others in our own self-righteousness, and then
we can say proudly, I've never done that. Because God providentially
restrains many people just as He did Abimelech. Abimelech was
attracted, you see, to Abraham's wife. Abimelech lusted after
Abraham's wife in his heart. In Genesis 20 verse 6 we read,
And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this
in the integrity of thy heart, for I also withheld thee from
sinning against me. Therefore suffered I thee not
to touch Abraham's wife. But at heart, in the very core
and the essence of our being, all natural men are alike. We
are all sinful before God. the debased harlot and the devoted
housewife, the murderer and the preacher, the obedient child
and the rebel child, they are all sinners. God says in Romans
3.12, they are all gone out of the way. They are together become
unprofitable. There is none that doeth good.
No, not one. That's why. That's why we all
need a savior. God's only provision for sinners
is Jesus Christ. In the law that God gave to Israel,
provision was made for a man to divorce his wife in specific
circumstances. And the Lord tells us that this
provision was made because of the hardness of men's hearts.
But from the beginning, it was not so. Turn please to Isaiah
54, verse 5. You know, I'm sure, that all
of those who believe are married spiritually to Christ. And Christ
is also married to us. But as painful as it is for us
to acknowledge, we are constantly being an adulterous, fornicating
wife as we sin against our utterly devoted husband. Yet, such is
Christ's love for us and his devotion to us that he will never
put us away. He'll never divorce us. On the
contrary, he continually calls for us to return to him, and
when we won't by our own power, He graciously changed our hearts
so that we turn to Him in repentance. As God says to us in Isaiah 54
and verse 5, Thy maker is thy husband. The Lord of hosts is
His name. And thy Redeemer, the Holy One
of Israel. The God of the whole earth shall He be called. And
in Jeremiah 3 verse 1, Christ our husband says, They say, if
a man put away his wife, in other words, if he divorces her, They
say, if a man put away his wife and she go from him and become
another man's, shall he return unto her again? Shall not that
land be greatly polluted? But thou hast played the harlot
with many lovers, and yet return again to me, saith the Lord. And the book of Hosea is all
about an unfaithful life, which is picturing the church of God
and that wife. And in chapter 2, verses 19 and
20 of Hosea, our Lord says, And I will betroth thee unto Me forever. Yea, I will betroth thee unto
Me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in
mercies. And I will betroth thee unto
Me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord. We should
love and adore and praise our faithful husband because He hates
putting away, as Micah 2, verse 16 says. And He'll never allow
us to leave Him. As God says in Jeremiah 32, verses
38 to 40, And they shall be My people, and I'll be their God.
And I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear
Me forever, for the good of them and of their children after them.
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will
not turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my
fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me." We
should love God with our whole hearts, body, mind, and soul.
And we should be faithful to Him as a faithful wife. But the
truth is we often commit spiritual adultery. That's why we need
a Savior. Then in Matthew 5, verses 33-37,
Jesus says to His disciples, Again you have heard that it
has been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear
thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. But I say
unto you, swear not at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne,
nor by the earth, for it is His footstool, neither by Jerusalem,
for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear
by thy head, because thou canst make one hair white or black.
But let your communication be yea, yea, and nay, nay. For whatsoever
is more than these cometh of evil." Our Lord is referring
to the law of God in Exodus 20, verse 7, which says, Thou shalt
not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. For the Lord
will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. But
for you to keep this law, requires much more than just not using
God's name in vain when you curse. This law of God forbids all vain,
all light thoughts and words about God and His work. This
law is talking about taking an oath or a promise, and it compels
simple honesty. Honest men don't have to take
an oath before people who know them. Our Lord isn't forbidding
us here to take a lawful oath as one might be required to do
in a court of law. But he is forbidding us to rashly
use God's name in common speech, which reveals a lack of reverence
for God and an utter contempt for God. But believers reverence
a sovereign God who rules on His throne, and so reverencing
Him as God, they talk about Him before their fellow mortals on
this earth in honesty. If I believe God, I have no reason
to be dishonest before men. And if I am honest before God,
I am honest before men. As John Gill stated, a righteous
man's yea is yea, and his no is no, and his word is sufficient. The common use of an oath is
to emphasize or to enforce a simple yes or no. As Matthew 5.37 says,
but let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay, for whatsoever
is more than these cometh of evil. Clearly such oaths arise
in our mouths out of an evil and a dishonest heart. The thing
that is being taught by our Savior in this passage is that the law
of God is spiritual. As Paul said in Romans 7, 14,
we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. And in Psalm 51, verse 6, David
said to God, Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and
in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom." God
didn't punish Adam for eating an apple, but God punished Adam
for the rebellion and treason of his heart. Sin isn't an outward
problem, it's an inward problem. Sin is a heart problem. Let our
Lord's words in this portion of Holy Scripture demonstrate
to us complete ignorance of man about spiritual things. The natural
man, no matter how devotedly religious he is, is completely
ignorant of God's character, his own character, and the requirements
of God's holy law. Most professing Christians, I
fear, don't know any more about God's law and true holiness than
the spiritually ignorant scribes and Pharisees did in our Lord's
day. They know the letter of the law and they try to live
by it. And so, because they are outwardly moral, they presume,
like the rich young ruler, that they have kept God's law. And
so they see nothing terribly obnoxious, nothing very sinful
about themselves. That's the reason for man's natural
pride. That's the reason for man's self-righteousness
and his easy contentment with an outward form of godliness.
And it's exactly the reason why we need a Savior. The person
who knows the Gospel, knows the proper place of the law and the
glory of God's free grace. He is a person who rests in Christ
alone for all that the law requires and all that justice demands.
But that person who mixes law and grace in any measure whatsoever
as a matter of his acceptance before God has not yet learned
the gospel. There aren't any two things in
the world which are more completely opposed to one another than law
and grace. They are as opposite as light
and darkness. They can no more agree than fire
and water. Like oil and water, law and grace
simply will not mix. The Scriptures are explicitly
clear about this. In Romans 11, verses 5 and 6,
Paul says, by the inspiration of God, even so then at this
present time also there is a remnant according to the election of
grace. And if by grace, then it is no more of works. It's
no more of the law. Otherwise, grace is no more grace.
But if it be of works, if it be of the law, then it is no
more grace. Otherwise, work is no more work.
Yet there is an amazingly well-established opinion in the deceived minds
of men that law and grace will mix. Although law and grace are
diametrically opposed to each other, The depraved human mind
and heart is so void of spiritual understanding and so thoroughly
turned away from God that the most difficult thing for man
to do is discriminate between law and grace. Men insist on
mixing that which God has positively put us under. And so because
of his foolish ignorance, man wants to find some legal standing
before God. But this is what the inspired
Paul opposes all through his letters. Paul said, We are not
under the law, but under grace. Wherefore, my brethren, you are
also become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you
should be married to another, even to him who is raised from
the dead, that you should bring forth fruit unto God. For what
the law could not do, that it was weak through the flesh, God
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin,
condemned sin in the flesh. That the righteousness of the
law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Wherefore, the
law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might
be justified by faith. But after that, faith has come.
We are no longer under a schoolmaster. But we know that the law is good,
if a man use it lawfully, knowing this, that the law is not made
for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient."
Does anything in that sound to you like Paul meant that he was
opposed to the law, or that he thought the law was an evil thing,
or that the law shouldn't be obeyed? Of course not. In the seventh chapter of Romans,
Paul shows us the believer's attitude towards God's holy law.
The true believer recognizes the purpose of the law, he delights
in the law, and he reverences the law. It's a believer's desire
to live in perfect compliance with the law. But in recognizing
the law's perfection, a believer refuses to seek acceptance with
God on the basis of legal obedience. The only way sinners can honor,
fulfill, and establish the law is by the faith of Jesus Christ.
As Paul said in Romans 3.31, Do we then make void the law
through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish
the law. So in these verses in Matthew
5 that we have been looking at, our Savior's object is to teach
us the absolute necessity of a divine, sin-atoning Savior.
God requires perfect righteousness, a righteousness that we can never
produce. God requires complete satisfaction for sin, a satisfaction
that we can never give. But blessed be His name. All
that God requires, God provides in the Lord Jesus Christ, our
Savior. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5.21, For He has made Him to
be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. Isn't that a beautiful verse?
And as Jesus says in Matthew 5 verses 38 to 42, you have heard
that it has been said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth. But I say unto you that you resist not evil, but whosoever
shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other
also. And if any man will sue thee
at the law and make away thy coat, let him have thy cloak
also. And whosoever shall compel thee
to go a mile, go with him too. Give to him that asketh thee,
and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not away. In God's
law, he requires an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
And God's righteousness and just requirements have been perfectly
met in Christ our surety, who having fulfilled all of the law's
requirements of the law for us, died under the penalty of the
law. suffering all of the fury of God's holy wrath to the full
satisfaction of justice. And when He was made sin for
us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
And so, as Romans 10, verse 4 says, Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. We know that we
can't ever meet God's demands. That's why we need a Savior.
And so we trust Christ alone as our Savior to save us from
our sin. But that doesn't make us indifferent
to sin. The thing that our Lord has been
teaching us throughout this passage is the importance of constant
watchfulness and diligence over our lives. We must be responsible
to Christ. It is our responsibility and
mine to put on Christ Jesus and then in Christ We are renewed
in the inward man day by day in Christ. We make no provision
for the flesh and we walk not as other Gentiles walk in the
vanity of their minds. We must walk in the Spirit, constantly
looking to Christ alone for our righteousness and for our acceptance
with God so that we don't fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Then
in Matthew 5, verses 38 and 47, the Lord Jesus teaches us the
blessedness of God's grace and love. we need to always be ready
to make up even whenever we have had a quarrel or a disagreement.
In verses 38 to 42, our Savior forbids everything like retaliation
and revenge and malice and unforgiving spirit. And then in verses 43
to 47, our God, our Savior, shows us that we who claim to be His
disciples are to practice indiscriminate, universal love towards our brethren. as we put away all malice, and
when we are cursed, we are to bless them. When we receive evil,
we are to return good. We are not to love in word only,
but to love also in deed. We'll deny ourselves and take
the trouble to be kind and courteous. We are to put up with much and
we are to bear much rather than hurt one another or give offense.
Unfailing courtesy, kindness, tenderness, and thoughtful consideration
of others are things that all men can understand, even if they
can't understand our doctrine. As Paul said to the Ephesians,
be kind one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as
God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. And our Lord uses two very
weighty arguments to enforce these principles of grace and
love. First, in verse 45, he says that it is the character
of God to be merciful and kind because He makes the sun and
the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. And in verses
46 and 47, Jesus is saying that if God is our Father, we will
reflect His character. And the second argument that
Jesus makes to enforce the principles of grace and love is that the
character of those who are of the world is to be selfish, self-serving,
and self-centered. So if that's my character, then
I'm yet of the world. In a word, our Lord tells us
to walk in love, to love our neighbors, ourselves, and even
to love our enemies. That's what the law requires.
That's what grace teaches. But I pray that you can hear
this, and please hear it well. That which God requires, Christ
has already done. And he did it for us. That which
He has done for us as our surety, that which He has done as our
substitute, we have done in Him then perfectly. No one but Christ
ever truly loved his neighbors himself. No one but Christ ever
loved his enemies or could love his enemies. As Paul said in
Romans 5 verses 5 to 8, hope maketh not ashamed because the
love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.
which is given unto us. For when we were yet without
strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely
for a righteous man will one die, yet perventure, yet perhaps,
for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commended
his love towards us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us. Try as we may, and as much as
we may want to, in our own power, We simply can't love our neighbor
as ourselves, and we can't bring ourselves to love our enemies
either. But thanks be to our God, we have a substitute. We
have the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, who has fulfilled the
law for us, and so in Him, and by Him, we fulfill the law. And so in verse 48 of Matthew
5, Jesus teaches us the lesson that we constantly need to have
brought before our minds. I need to bring it to you every
time that I preach. God demands perfection. Jesus
says, Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is
in heaven is perfect. But our perfection, this is what
I need to bring you, our perfection is only found in Jesus Christ. Although His sermon to His disciples,
all through it, our Lord has been teaching us that God demands
perfection. In this last verse, he states
it very plainly. By all means, we should strive
to live in perfection, in perfect holiness and in obedience to
the will of God and for the glory of God. We can't settle for less
than absolute perfection. We won't attain it here, but
we must strive to attain it. And our strength is found only
in Christ. Our strength to strive is found
in Christ. So we should look to Christ.
We should constantly be seeking total commitment to Christ and
total conformity to Christ and total communion with Christ.
But we should never imagine that we can attain perfection in this
world or that we can even make the slightest progress towards
being perfect. As long as we are in these bodies
of sin, we will be sinners. There is, therefore, There is no such thing as a partial
holiness, partial righteousness, or partial perfection. As Isaiah
64, verse 6 says, all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and that's
why we need a Savior. If we are ever to be made perfect,
it can only be in Christ, and so we must trust Christ for our
perfection. There is no perfection in this
world except that perfection which is in Christ and which
He gives. Men may call sincerity perfection,
improved behavior righteousness, and religious devotion holiness,
but God will never call them those things. As Luke 16 verse
15 says, that which is highly esteemed among men is abominable
in the sight of God. Yes, we are lost without a Savior. But just as the members of the
body possess all that belongs to the head, so also the members
of Christ's body are perfect in Him. And when our Savior says,
Be ye perfect, His meaning is, Be ye perfect in Him. All who
know Him will gladly acknowledge that, and so they say, Only in
the Lord have I righteousness. Just as Isaiah 45 verse 24 says,
I say to you, Surely, shall one say in the
Lord, have I righteousness and strength? Even to him shall men
come, and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed."
We glory in God because as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1 verse
30, of God are you in Christ Jesus, who of God has made unto
us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
We glory in Christ and we preach Christ. Because as Paul said
in Colossians 128, we preach Christ warning every man and
teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man
perfect in Christ Jesus. And so we preach Christ. As we preach Christ, we are anxiously
looking for that day when we will be with Christ in glory.
and when He shall present us, as Jude 124 says, faultless before
the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. Praise God for
coming to save us from our sin. Oh, how we need that Savior,
that Savior in whose name I have preached and in whose name I
pray for you. Amen.