But hopefully you'll get the
meaning of it. But the other alternate title
which I'm kind of leaning towards, and you'll get this as we go
through the sermon, really has to do with families. And it's
not necessarily what this text is teaching on the surface. but it's the context from which
this text is taken. And I want to get into that today
because as I was studying for this and providing those printouts
back there for you, I couldn't help but be drawn to the subject
of our families and the meaning of them. But anyway, first let's
read here. We've been going through Matthew
chapter five. And really I should be reading
all the way through here from verse 17 to the end of the chapter. I hope that you would take time
to read through the Sermon on the Mount. I can tell you that
from my own experience when I read the Sermon on the Mount, there
are several emotions that come up. One is I'm intimidated, terribly
intimidated. And there's a part of me that
it's like coming to a very bright light. You kind of see all the
problems that are evident. And so you want to back off from
it. But at the same time, when you
look at it carefully, you see the true message that's coming
through here. And I think when we see that, then it's a great
comfort. It's a great comfort. So Matthew
chapter five is in the middle of that. And I'm going to read
those verses with you here in a moment, but remember what this
is saying from verse 17. Christ didn't come to put away
the law. He didn't come to set it aside
or destroy it or to get around it. He came to fulfill it. And
not just a little, all of it, in every part. The littlest part
and the largest part. The greatest part and the least
significant part, as we would estimate it to be. And then he
says in verse 20, and this is a key verse to remind you of
it again, he says, I say unto you, Jesus said, that except
your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of
heaven. So hold that verse in your minds as we summarize here
first, and then we're gonna read in detail. Then the next thing
he does is he talks about the true meaning of the commandment
not to kill in verse 21 through 26. We went over that last week. The true meaning of what it means
not to kill. Teachers said in the old times
that it meant not to take a physical life. But Jesus explains that
it goes way deeper than that. God's law, the true meaning of
God's law goes below the letter to the spirit. And he shows that
to kill, I mean, it's equivalent to being angry with your brother
without cause, speaking to your brother with evil words. More
than just the outward act, but the thought itself, and that's
where all evil springs from, is our heart. So, if you anchor
the rest of the chapter on that, what you see here is that Christ
is expounding the law in its true meaning and applying it
to us, especially in the context of verse 20, where He said, "...your
righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and Pharisees." If we understand that, then the rest of it will
come into focus. And the last verse of chapter
5 also helps bring it into focus. He says, be ye therefore perfect,
even as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect. So those
words teach us something about the extreme demands of God's
law, but in the same context, in this sermon, we also see at
the outset, Jesus gives the answer, the answer we must have to meet
these demands, which is in verse 17. that Christ came to fulfill
the law and the prophets. Now, let's read together from
verse 27. He said, you have heard that
it was said by them of old time. And that phrase occurs six times
in this chapter. You've heard this, he says. And
where they heard that was in the olden times, the law was
explained by men in these terms, thou shalt not commit adultery.
That's exactly what the law says, but that's not what the law actually
meant. It meant more than just the physical
act. So Jesus explains it. He says,
but I say unto you that whosoever looks on a woman to lust after
her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And
then, building on the same thing, he says, "...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 that thy whole body should not be cast into hell." And then in verse 30, And if
thy 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 thy whole body should be cast into hell. So there you can see why I've
titled this message, Pluck Out, Cut Off, with a question mark. Now, I don't know how many times
you've heard or read these words in Matthew chapter five. Jesus
says, if you look on a woman with lust, you've already committed
the act of adultery in your heart. And then he builds on that. He
says, it would be better for you to pluck your eye out than
to sin in your heart. It would be better for you to
cut your hand off if it causes you to sin, because it's better
not to go to hell with missing parts than it is to allow yourself
to commit these sins. I'm summarizing it here. And
how many times have you wondered about these words? Should we actually do this? Should
we pluck out our eyes? Should we cut off our hands?
And so keep that question in your thoughts as we look at this.
Now, as I said, in verse 20, the Lord Jesus Christ makes this
huge statement. He says, I say unto you that
except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the
scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom
of heaven. Now, I've thought about this. There was a huge crowd of people
here. There must have been a large
number of scribes and Pharisees in the crowd. Imagine that you
were one of them. Imagine that you're sitting there
or standing and listening to Jesus. And he's going through
all these blessings, blessed are the poor in spirit and so
on. And then he comes to this statement, and he says, I say
unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed. Now he's, and you're
hanging on his words, and here you are, a professed, publicly
recognized scribe, or a Pharisee. And then he says, except your
righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
And you feel those words, and you suddenly feel like all the
eyes in the crowd must have been fixed on you. And you wonder,
what is he saying? Unless your righteousness shall
exceed this man's righteousness, this man who professes to know
the law and keep the law, unless your righteousness exceed this
man's righteousness, you won't enter heaven. I know that that
would feel something like a huge public punch right in the stomach.
Where everything that you had, it would deflate you, wouldn't
it? It would melt you in the presence of the master teacher. People, crowds, were coming to
hear him. What were you going to say? Were
you going to rise up at that point and argue with him? No,
you keep your mouth shut. Because His words find you, and
convict you, and condemn you. He's already said right here,
you will not enter heaven. You! And this is the Lord Jesus Christ,
the one who came from heaven. The one who was sent from heaven.
So you know right here, in this verse, the purpose of this part
of His sermon, first and foremost, is this. To convince us of sin,
to convince us of sin. And if we see that as the leading
head here of this part of the sermon, then what follows falls
under that heading and does the job. He takes those things that
we rely on, things we think we can do, and he exposes us as
having committed them all, everyone, broken the whole law. James says
in James 2 verse 10, If you've broken one of the laws, then
you've broken them all. And Jesus says, unless you keep
the law of God from the heart, you haven't kept it at all. You've
broken it in your heart. So the first thing that the sermon
does here is it puts all men in the dust and silences them,
shuts their mouth guilty before God. And then as we saw last
week as we went through the verse 21 through 26, that it takes
from the law the thing that people publicly think of as the worst
crimes, murder. And it takes the one that everyone
would have said, I missed that one, I didn't do that one, I'm
okay here. And it says, no, the worst crimes you've committed
in your heart, and you're guilty. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
not only convinces us undeniably of our guilt, but He also convinces
us of our inward corruption. And then in this verse here,
as we read here in verse 27, you've heard that it was said
of them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery. Now, the
Pharisees were undoubtedly overly concerned with outward conformance
to the law. And in those areas where they
were unable to outwardly conform to the law, they changed the
meaning of it so it would make them look like they were conforming
to it. And so what that does, as I've
brought out a couple of times in this series, is that makes
the law your servant. When we change the law to adapt
to us, it means we make God's truth honor us instead of our
obedience honoring God. It's a horrible crime and rebellion
against God's truth. Christ is taking the law and
He's opening it up and He's shining that bright light on us, dividing
the thoughts and intents of our heart and showing us our guilt
and our corruption before God. And these verses here, he says,
if you look on a woman, whoever looks upon a woman hath committed
adultery with her in his heart already. He's speaking to men.
And he's speaking to that drive that men have, which is perhaps
one of the strongest drives known to men. And that is this desire
to be with a woman. And he says, if you think about
this in your heart, In a way that's unlawful, with a woman
who's not your wife, you've already committed adultery. Now what
does that do? It makes us all guilty, just
like the first one, doesn't it? Who can claim innocence of this
law? Who can claim, by what Christ
has said here, that we're not guilty? None of us can. And it's
a shameful thing to think that my, in the first case of murder,
to think that my selfishness, my desire to promote myself at
the expense of others is actually murdering them in order to make
me look good. And always seeking my own needs
above others, envying when others are blessed instead of me, hating
without cause, and being angry without cause. All these things
constitute murder in our heart when you say, well, I'm guilty. And what's the solution to these
things? Well, that's the first thing the Sermon on the Mount
does, is it lays us all in the dust, guilty before God. So, I think that if we see that,
then we'll see the following here, that the Sermon on the
Mount shows us what won't work. Personal obedience to the law
won't work. It just won't work. And this
is the first message of the gospel. And we have to learn this message
over and over again. It's a painful thing. Have you
ever had someone accuse you of being a sinner publicly in the very thing
that you trusted you had been obedient in, and know that they're
actually right, and feeling the sting? And knowing that you didn't
want to admit it, but you had to admit it, and so you were
both admitting it because of the peer pressure, but at the
same time, in your heart, you were angry at them for pointing
out your guilt, what you really were. That's what happens here. The first thing that must have
arisen in the hearts of the scribes and Pharisees is what? Hatred
for the man preaching this sermon. And he addresses that. You're
murdering, not right now. You're murdering. You're committing
the very crimes that God's law forbid and that you boast in
having kept. And so it lays us low and in
the dust and guilty, guilty, guilty before God. Now, when
we think about this, When we see this, we also see that the
reason that the Lord Jesus Christ does this is for our good. It is to honor God's law, because
the Pharisees and scribes had totally made a mockery of God's
law, both in not keeping it and trying to modify it. And we've
done the same in our self-righteousness. But the other thing Christ does
doing this is he it's a mercy it's a mercy what he does remember
the rich young ruler he came to Jesus master good master what
must I do to inherit eternal life and Jesus said well you
know do this do that he gave him the law and he says all these
have I kept from my youth up amazing amazing I could never
have said that I wish I could. I've honored my father and my
mother. I haven't stolen. I haven't committed adultery.
I haven't done all those things. And Jesus, He said, and take
everything that you have and sell it and give it to the poor. And that was just too much for
Him, wasn't it? He went away sorrowful. Eternal
life? That's what I need. That's what
I want. Eternal life? And yet he couldn't let go of
his riches. You see, that was a mercy. And the disciples asked Jesus
after that account, they said, Lord, who then can be saved? And Jesus said, with men, this
is impossible. It's impossible with men. Why? Because men are corrupt. We're
corrupt. We can't do right. We cannot
serve God. Joshua told the people in the
Old Testament, you cannot serve the Lord. That's just the way
we are. The Lord Jesus Christ in this,
if He hasn't done this to us, then we haven't understood the
Sermon on the Mount. He's proving to us that each
one of us have never kept the law. Not once. Not one of these
commands. And yet the law requires we keep
every command. Not only every command, but continually
keep every command. And also do it perfectly. And not just outwardly, but in
our heart. There's just no possibility,
is there? Give it up, right? It's impossible with men. It
is impossible. And so that's a mercy though,
isn't it? Isn't it a mercy to be brought
to the end of yourself? That is a mercy. So that's the
first thing that's done in the Sermon on the Mount. And here
he's doing it again in the case of adultery. We have been guilty. Every man in here, I'm sure,
can stand up and say and confess before all, I'm guilty of this
sin against God in my heart. And it's a shameful thing. We
would like not to be, wouldn't we? Do you want to be a sinner
so incapable of serving the true and living God that you cannot
not sin? That's a frustration, isn't it?
We're slaves to sin. It says in Romans 8-7, the carnal
mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law
of God, and neither indeed can be. That's the truth of the gospel. And that's the first thing God
has to bring us to. But when we read these things,
and I know that you've, You've had to have this experience.
When you read the scriptures, and the scriptures is everything
God requires of us, when you read it, you see things that
God says, do this and don't do that, in words, one way or another,
and you immediately think, I want to do that. And He says, if you
don't do this, then you're guilty, and you can't enter heaven. And
you say, what am I going to do then? And that's the second part
of this sermon. The second part of this sermon
is that he teaches here that Christ alone can and actually
did fulfill the law of God. And I take you back again to
this anchor verse, this truth that's revealed mercifully in
Romans chapter eight. And if you write any verses as
a commentary, on the Sermon on the Mount in
chapter 5 of Matthew. I recommend that you put this
one there, these two verses. He says, in fact, I'll read from
verse 1 through verse 4. I know you know these texts of
Scripture, but it's to my great comfort that this is in the Bible.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."
But I've thought murderous thoughts in my heart, I've committed adultery
in my heart, and I've done things we haven't even gotten to in
chapter 5 yet. And yet there's no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus. Remember David. He was a murderer.
He was an adulterer. And yet he's the very one God
used, and on purpose, to pen those words, blessed is the man
to whom the Lord will not impute sin. That's what it says here. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the spirit. For the law of the spirit of
life in Christ Jesus, that's the gospel, hath made me free
from the law of sin and death. That's the law of works, the
law of God. But for what the law could not do, God's holy
law, that Christ is expounding in its meaning, it could not
do, in that it was weak through my flesh, God sending His own
Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, as an offering
for sin, condemned sin in His flesh, in the flesh. For what
purpose? That the righteousness of the
law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh
but after the spirit. That means we don't trust in
our own law keeping but we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
That's what it means, not to walk after the flesh but to walk
after the spirit. Do you see that verse in verse
4? That the righteousness of the law, the righteousness of
the law, that's thought Word, deed, will, affections, our understanding,
everything that God requires is met for us by the Lord Jesus
Christ. So that's the second thing that
the Lord Jesus Christ does in his Sermon on the Mount. Because
the law brings us to the end of ourselves and leaves us at
the feet of Christ. And he said it, didn't he? In
verse 17 of Matthew 5. I didn't come to set it aside
or destroy it. I came to fulfill it. And so
everyone there must have heard these words and must have come
to this. Who was led by the Spirit of God to see what Christ was
saying was the truth of Scripture. They had to be immersively brought
to this point. And then back to Matthew chapter
5. The third thing that I want you
to see here. is, and we just read about it
in Romans 5, I mean Romans 8, so I'll refer to it, is that
he tells us to be perfect. To be perfect. How can we possibly
be perfect? I remember reading that. Have
you ever read that and thought, okay, I wanna be perfect, I wanna
be perfect, I'll try to be perfect, and as soon as the thought escapes
your mind, you fall the next instant. That's just the way
it is, isn't it? Every time we look at the requirements
God has put in his word, and you wanna keep it, but no, you
fail, and you realize that there's a part of you who's rebellious
and can't be tamed, and will not be subject to the law of
God, and that's our old man. And so, this third thing is that
the Lord Jesus Christ tells us what He tells us here in order
that we might understand how to be perfect before God. How
can we possibly be perfect? And let me read to you just a
few verses in Hebrews, because we read this one in Romans 8.
If you want to follow in Hebrews chapter 9, you can see these.
I flee to these verses like the murderer flees to the city of
refuge. I literally do. And I think,
if I just had Matthew 5 just like it is, without the commentary
of the rest of Scripture, there would be no hope for me. Absolutely.
And no hope for you either. Unless God gives us a sight of
Christ, we are lost. But in Hebrews chapter 9, just
to take a few verses, look at verse 11 and 12. But Christ being
come, and high priest of good things to come. Actually, let
me go back to Hebrews chapter 7. Look at Hebrews chapter 7. Look at this, verse 11. Hebrews 7, verse 11. If therefore
perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, for under it the
people received the law, what further need was there, that
another priest should rise after the order of Melchizedek, and
not be called after the order of Aaron?" Why would God do away
with the priesthood of Aaron? Why would He prophesy before
the priesthood of Aaron that there would be coming another
priest, and after it, if that priesthood achieved perfection? That was the argument. And then
in verse 19 of chapter 7 he says, "...for the law made nothing
perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did." That's
the hope we have, which is Christ seated in heaven and having accomplished
the will of God for his people. And now look over at chapter
9, verse where I was starting to read, "...but Christ, being
come in high priest of good things to come," this is how he obtained
this perfection, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle,
not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building,
neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood,
he entered once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us." You know what redemption is? That's paying
the uttermost farthing. Remember Jesus said, if you don't
agree with your adversary, while you're in the way, you're going
to be taken by the adversary to the judge. He's going to put
you in the hands of the officer, and he's going to cast you into
prison, and you will not come out until you've paid the uttermost
farthing. Redemption is Christ paying with
His blood the ransom, paying the uttermost farthing of our
debt to God, satisfying God's law, fulfilling all righteousness,
and setting us free with forgiveness to know and love and be saved
by the living God. So that's what that is all about.
Eternal redemption with His own blood. That's obtaining it for
us. But then look at verse 26. I'm
sorry, verse 25 of the same chapter. Verse 24 through 26. For Christ
is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which
are the figures of the true. He didn't enter into an earthly
tabernacle, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence
of God for us. That summarizes everything right
there. All of the ceremonies, the building, the furniture,
the vessels of the ministry, the priesthood, the services,
everything they did, the process, all of it was just a shadow of
a reality that existed in heaven. And Christ, He entered heaven
in the reality with His own blood there. That's what this is saying.
He entered heaven for us to appear in God's presence for us. The
priest who could appear before God himself, not with smoke and
shadows, but in the reality of it, verse 25, nor yet that he
should offer himself often as the high priest enters into the
holy place every year with blood of others. For then must he often
have suffered since the foundation of the world. But now, once in
the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the
sacrifice of himself. You see, what was it that happened
when we looked with lust on a woman and committed adultery? That
sin. What happened to that? What happened to that sin of
murder? Christ offered Himself to God to put away the sins of
His people. He redeemed us. He removed the
debt. He cancelled the debt and fulfilled
all the requirements. and obtained eternal redemption.
And then going on in chapter 10, look at verse, these are the most glorious words
possible. He says, Verse 5 of chapter 10,
wherefore, when he cometh into the world, the Lord Jesus Christ,
when he comes into the world, he says, sacrifice an offering
you did not want. That's what it means, thou wouldest
not. But a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin thou hast had no pleasure. No pleasure. Then said I, Lo,
I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to
do thy will, O God. Above, when he said sacrifice,
and offering, and burnt offerings, and offering for sin, thou wouldest
not, neither has pleasure therein, which are offered by the law.
Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He takes away
the first. Do you see those words? I hope
that they're so emblazoned on your conscience. that when you read through the
scripture, it's like you come under the shadow of the fiery
law and you immediately run back over there. Did it really say
that? I do that. And then in Romans 8, What the
Law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, God
did, sending His own Son in the likeness of our sinful flesh,
and for sin, condemned sin in His flesh, in order that the
righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us. How is the
righteousness of the law fulfilled in us? Well, when God graciously
opens our eyes to the fact that Christ fulfilled His law, fulfilled
God's law, satisfying and fulfilling every part, every jot, every
tittle, in every way, then our conscience sees that and faith
embraces that. And we say, We see what God sees. We think like He does. We agree
with God about ourselves. We can come boldly to the throne
of grace. It's like in John 3. He says,
Everyone who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds
might be exposed and made manifest, that they're wrought in God.
Everything God requires of us, even to perfection, the perfection
of His law is met in Christ. And when we believe that, when
God gives us the persuasion and conviction of that in our heart,
then the law of God is fulfilled in us. We're made perfect. We were made perfect by the blood
of Christ, but we realize it, and the application of it is
made to us, and we experience the cleansing of our conscience
in ourselves, and the law of God then, for us, is fulfilled
when we believe, and we walk in that. That's what it means
to be perfect. Be perfect. We can't be perfect
in ourselves. We only have one hope of being
perfect. It's in Christ. Have we been
convinced of that? There's two things that convince
us of it. At least two. The condemnation of the law.
You're guilty. Shut your mouth, the law says. You're guilty. Your thoughts
expose you as the, you're the one in the front pew of the church
that's not making it to heaven on what you've done. You're the
young, rich, young ruler who can't let go of his riches. Now,
when Paul, the apostle, saw these things, he said, all the things
I could've and should've trusted, or I could've trusted in, and
I did trust in, In order to be right before God, everything
I did, I was blameless in the law. Look at Philippians chapter
3. Just quickly, I just want to take you to these because,
again, it's things I constantly refer to. I have these verses, you know, these tracts in the
Bible. They're just worn out here because you keep going there. This is what it says. Philippians
3, he says, Verse 4, Though I might also have confidence in the flesh,
if any other man thinks that he has whereof he might trust
in the flesh, I more circumcise the eighth day, right on time,
of the stock of Israel. I can prove it. I can trace my
lineage right back to Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew
of the Hebrews. When I stand among the Hebrews,
I'm on the top podium. When I'm among the Pharisees,
I'm at the front of the church. The Pharisee of the Pharisees.
The best of the best. And you know what he says? It
didn't profit me anything. It was detestable. It was hateful. It was the most repugnant thing. I wanted to get rid of it because
it didn't move me toward God. It moved me in the opposite direction. Trusting in my own obedience
to the law to make me blameless or acceptable or better or anything
before God is actually going the opposite. way of truth. He says it here. He says, "...and
all these things concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching
the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. No one could
accuse me. I was the rich young ruler, perhaps,
who stood there and said, I've done all those things from my
youth. But when what things were gained to me, the things I thought
were a profit, those I counted lost for Christ, when God showed
him the gospel, It was a hateful thing. He said, yea, doubtless,
I count all things but loss. Everything about myself is loss
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for
whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them
but dung that I may win Christ. Sometimes we think, well, when
I was younger, before I was saved, I did these things. I went to
church, I followed the rules, and I obeyed my mom and dad and
all those things, and that made me more savable. Or maybe we
think, in order to be a good Christian, I looked at Matthew
5 and all these things Jesus said. And so I practice that. I try not to hate and envy and
all those things. And don't try to lust. And don't
commit them outwardly, for sure. And now I'm a better Christian. No, you're not. You're a worse
Christian because you're thinking and trusting in your own righteousness. That's the very fundamental first
step, is to realize you'll never be better than a sinner in yourself. You're always going to be a sinner
in yourself. You can't change. You're not
righteous and you never will be in yourself. And Paul says,
I want to flesh it, everything about me. And so he says in verse
three, he says, we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit,
not outwardly, in the spirit, at the very core of who we are.
And we rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the
flesh. The one who has no confidence
in the flesh but has confidence in Christ is perfect before God
because God has given them that perfection before His throne
and He's brought the result of it to them so that by faith they
receive it. They receive what's true. They
receive what God has said is true and therefore Therefore,
they know it, and they depend on it, and they come to God by
it. So that's the third thing God shows us here is to be perfect. Be perfect. And these next two
things I just want to cover quickly, because I want to get to this
part on the family, as I suggested I was going to. The fourth thing
is that it is taught in the Sermon on the Mount here, throughout
these verses, is that in the inward man, we delight in the
law of God. Now that seems contrary to what
I was saying at first blush, because you just said that we're
sinners and we can do nothing but sin, but yes. But we've been
made a new creature in Christ, and we do desire I want to love
my brothers and sisters. I want to love my wife like Christ
loves the church. I want to rejoice in Christ Jesus. I want to be faithful. I don't
want to commit these sins against God. I want to honor God. I do
want to do those things, but I'm constantly falling short. So in my desire to be conformed
to the image of Christ, two things happen. Number one, I never ever
look, or I never want to, I never want to look to anything I desire
or do or am or shall be or want to be or any of those things
as a cause for confidence or assurance or anything like that.
And the second thing is, I constantly want to be like Christ. I really
do want to. It says, I like what it says
in Psalm 119. Look at Psalm 119. And here's some more verses I
constantly go to. And you'll recognize this, because
you've probably heard me say these things over and over. So
I apologize for not wearing out other places in the Bible. But
look at Psalm 119, verse 35. Make me to go in the path of
thy commandments, for therein do I delight. You hear the prayer?
Make me go there. That's what I delight in. Incline
mine heart to thy testimonies and not to covetousness. Turn
away mine eyes from beholding vanity and quicken me, make me
alive in your way. You see that? That's the prayer
of God's people. Yes, I delight in the law of
God, but I know that unless God puts me in the way, inclines
me, turns me from covetousness and all these things, it'll never
happen. And when will it actually happen? It will happen, and this
is the final point in the Sermon on the Mount, is it will only
happen in glory in my experience. In my experience, now I can only
look to Christ and desire for those things and pray, Lord,
conform me to the image of your dear son. But in my experience,
not until glory will I be free from sin. And think about what
that will be like. You can't even imagine it. What
will it be like not to be influenced by sin, by your inward man, not
to be tempted by sin, to have no desire for it, to love God
and to know God as He is? I can only wonder about that.
It says in Galatians 5.5, We, through the Spirit, do wait for
the hope of righteousness by faith. Right now, we're just
waiting. We're hoping for that righteousness. We have it in
Christ, but we wait for it. And by faith, we're looking for
the... In Romans 8.25, he says, If we hope for that we see not,
then we with patience wait for it. But if we already have it,
then we don't have hope. So we're constantly looking for
that. So those five things I see in the Sermon on the Mount. And
now I want to give you, I want to turn my attention now. It
seems like kind of a right turn, but it's not really. Because
it's here in the context of Matthew 5. And we're going to be getting
into this perhaps next week in more detail. When we look at
this matter of divorce. But I want to talk about marriage.
Marriage. I don't know why you're shaking
your head. I have no ground. I, Rick, take you, Denise, to
be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day
forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness
and in health, to love and to cherish from this day forward
until death do us part. Remember those words? Some of
you are married. Some of you are thinking about
marriage. Some of you would like to be
married. But we need to understand what marriage is. And understanding
what marriage is, God is going to put before our eyes the truth. And we're going to see it by
faith. And we need to walk in it. Because this is the way the
gospel works. God tells us the truth of the
way things are. He gives us faith to see that.
And then in our lives we operate in a way that orders our thinking
and our thoughts and our actions and our words according to the
pattern that we see by faith. That's what it is. So what is
marriage? And here's a few things that I have been able to extract
for you to think about. I believe that marriage in the
Bible is the union between a man and a woman. This is kind of
funny, you think about, for me. It's a funny situation because
as I was beginning to look at this, I realized this is the
way some preachers get stuck in the whole aspect of everyday
life and lose sight of the gospel. We're not going to do that. But
when I mention these things to you, you'll immediately see what
marriage is and the benefit God has given us in giving us this
marriage. First, marriage is the union
between a man and a woman, not between a man and women, and
not between a woman and many men. It's between one man and
one woman, period. That's what marriage is, the
union between a man and a woman. And this is established before
the fall. You know, that's one of the blessings
of marriage. It was something God ordained, God created, and
God gave to Adam and Eve and everyone thereafter, marriage. The union between a man, and
what kind of a union? Well, There are several things
here. It's a covenant union. What do
we mean by that? Marriage is based on a commitment,
an agreement, promises to one another. Promises to love, promises
to be faithful, promises to cherish. And the husband promises certain
things, and the wife promises certain things, and this is a
covenant union. Now when I mention this, you'll
see immediately the parallels. And we'll get to those in a minute
here, but just think about this. It's a covenant union. If there's
no commitment in marriage, there's no marriage. People commit fornication. That's desiring the blessing
without the commitment. But the Lord Jesus Christ gave
no blessings without first laying down his life. He first took
his wife to himself, owned her as his, all of her obligations,
and he fulfilled them in laying down his life because she was
given to him as one with him and he assumed everything for
her. The commitment was there, and then the blessings. Remember
Ephesians 1-3? God has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That's a reference
to marriage between His people and the Lord Jesus Christ. Second,
It's not only a covenant union, but it's a loving union. It's
based on a mutual love and trust and delight in one another. We
should never get married unless we actually delight in a person.
It wouldn't be a successful marriage. If you don't delight in a person,
please don't get married. If you're already married, you
should delight in your spouse. Make that happen. It's one way
or the other. Now when I say all these things,
there's always the ideal and there's the reality. But we have
to have the ideal before our eyes. If we just set our sights
down to the level of our reality, then of course we can't be encouraged
at all, can we? We can't cry to God at all for
what ought to be. So it's a loving union. Just
like the Lord Jesus Christ loved the church and gave himself for
it. Just like the church of God lovingly submits to Christ. Just
like in a happy marriage, the husband wants to do for his wife
everything that will make her happy. And just like the wife
in reciprocation wants to make her husband happy. It's a loving
union and it's a legal union. It's God who established and
sanctioned and blessed marriage. As I mentioned, even before the
fall. He says in Hebrews 13.4, he says, marriage is honorable
in all, and the bed undefiled. But whoremongers and adulterers
God will judge. And then, the next thing is,
it's a public union. We don't get married in secret.
Why? Because everyone needs to know
that you're married to that person. And you're saying, from the highest
mountain, I commit my life to this woman whom I love, as long
as us both shall live." That's what you're saying. And if you're
ashamed of your wife, then don't get married. And if you're ashamed
of your husband, don't get married. Be willing to stand up amongst
everyone and say, I love this woman, she's mine, God has given
her to me, and I commit myself to her. That's what Jesus did,
isn't it? He stood up. Publicans and harlots
Diseased, plagued, dying and dead. And he said, these are
mine. These are the sheep. I've come
to lay my life down for them. It's a public union. And it's
a permanent union. What God has joined together,
let not man put asunder. And it's a physical union. The
two shall be one flesh. And it's a union in the Lord.
God has done this. Now all these things are true
about marriage. There's something even bigger,
if you can imagine it, in this matter of a family. And this
is what I was trying to get to just briefly, and I won't have
time to really elaborate on this much. But I want you to think
for a minute. What God has done in creating
our families is he's given us a pattern. An earthly pattern
of a heavenly reality. And sometimes, maybe all the
times, we don't even think about it. What is a family made up
of? A father, a mother, who are husband
and wife, and they have children, sons and daughters. That's a
family, isn't it? And when did this start? It started
at creation. Adam said, Therefore shall a
man leave his father and his mother, and shall cling to his
wife, and they too shall be one flesh. And then, as a result
of that union, there would be children born. Fruit of their
love, that fruit being children born to the honor and glory of
God. God blessed that relationship
and He gave them children. And so that's why in the Old
Testament women and men would be so sorrowful when they couldn't
have children. And many things about the family
we see. There's these roles of father, a role of a mother, the
role of a husband and wife, the role of sons and daughters and
children to each other and to their parents. Think about those
roles. And when you think about those
roles, understand this, that God has created the family in
the world, in the earth. It was created at the beginning
and it will never cease until that world ends. And in creating
that family, God has taught us, even in broken families, a truth
about heavenly reality. God has taught us with His Word
and with this pattern that we actually live in. We operate
in this pattern. We don't even think about it.
We're doing this day to day. We have interactions in this
relationship of our family. And in doing so we're living
out a heavenly pattern that exists and is true. So much so that
just as in the Old Testament, in the ceremonial law, those
people had to offer sacrifices and make the tabernacle and set
it up and put it, you know, bring it down and worship God in the
context of that shadowy type. But when Christ came and fulfilled
that, the shadowy type was done away. No more need for it. It's
fulfilled. But the family, the family is also a shadowy type
of heavenly reality. The Father, God the Father has
always eternally been the Father. And God the Son has always eternally
stood in relationship to His Father as a Son. His Father has
always given Him everything that was in His heart. Told Him what
was in His heart from eternity. And the Son has always looked
to His Father with the greatest honor and love and respect and
received instruction. What is your will? What is your
heart? That's what I want to do. This
is the relationship between the father and his son. And the relationship
extends within the family because God has taken his people, his
chosen people. God the Father adopted these
children as his own. And he gave this woman, this
church, his people collectively and individually to his son to
be his to be his wife forever. It was done in heaven, given
to him, and the Lord Jesus Christ willingly, lovingly accepts and
longs for that woman to be his bride. And then all the things
you think about in a family. What is a father like? A father
is someone who plans in our physical families. Doesn't he plan? He
thinks about what the family ought to do. What he's going
to do and how he can fulfill that for his family. He works. He provides for them. He protects
them. He nourishes his children. He
teaches and instructs them and corrects them. And his children
look at their father and they respect him because they think,
my dad could whip your dad. They think, my dad is so strong
and so wise, he could do anything. They think that. That's the way
children are. My dad's the greatest guy in all the world. Because
they look at his father, and they respect and honor him, and
they want to be obedient. When they can please their father,
when a child pleases their father, and their father shows that,
there is no greater delight in a child's heart. And it keeps going. What is the
husband's role? To provide for his wife, to love
his wife, to cherish her and to make her, to think about her
needs, to disclose his own heart to her and have her disclose
herself to him. So that there's this loving mutual
communion and warmth of affection and commitment to each other.
So strong is that commitment between a husband and wife that
Adam said a man is actually going to leave his father and his mother
and cleave to his wife. Above every other union on earth,
that is the strongest one. And so it is with God's people.
There's this union between Christ and His people. When God Himself
looks at His Son, He sees His people with Him. And when He
looks at His people, He sees His Son. There's no difference. When He sees His people, Christ
sees Himself. blesses His Son and blesses His
people with Him. They're His children, the husband
and wife. And He nourishes, He bestows
every blessing on them. And so in all these things, no
wonder it says these kinds of things in the scripture. Have
you ever noticed this? Children, children, obey your parents as
in the Lord, as unto the Lord. Husband, I mean, wife, submit
yourselves to your husband as unto the Lord. You see, God wants
us to see by faith, the true, the heavenly, God the Father,
God the Son, Christ our husband in the church, the mother of
all of us, through the preaching of the gospel, children are born
and are brought into the family, God's adopted children. All of
this has to do. So that when there's a violation
of this God-ordained and God-designed unit of the family, then there's
a violation of the truth. There's a violation, there's
a breaking down of the truth. That's why adultery is so significant. Christ did not lay down his life
for those who were not his bride, for those who were not his wife.
He laid his life down for the church and loved her. And a man
to go out and to seek blessing the blessings of marriage outside
of the commitment and the covenant, it's to reflect back on the spiritual
union between Christ and His people as if Christ could, as
if His people could be blessed or that He could bless His people
apart from that commitment and that covenant. It can't happen.
And so, Spiritual adultery is the same thing. It's seeking
blessings from God apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. Spiritual adultery is nothing
less than idolatry. It's seeking acceptance from
God and assurance from God apart from looking to Christ. So I
just give you a thumbnail sketch of this family on earth, which
is a shadowy type of the true family in heaven. I told Denise
I was thinking about this And those words that the Sadducees
said when they came to Jesus and said, you know, here was
a woman who had a husband, and he died, and so she married his
brother, and he died, and another brother, and finally there were
seven that had her. And so, in the resurrection, you know, you
say there's a resurrection. Whose wife is she going to be?
Jesus said, you do greatly err, not knowing the scriptures or
the power of God. In the resurrection they neither
marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels of heaven. in that way. They're not angels,
but they're like them in that they don't marry and give in
marriage. On earth, we have this physical family. In heaven, we
have the reality of it. The church joined to Christ. The sons of God embraced with
the eternal love of God the Father himself. They know then, even
as they are known, all these things just fit together because
the family on earth reflects that family. What a wondrous
grace God has. Do you see the spirituality of
God's law? The law is a reflection of who
God is. It reveals spiritual principles
that are true about God. For God to forsake his law or
to let one thing of it fail would be to deny himself in the truth
of glory. And so we want to come to the
Lord Jesus Christ and say, Lord, save me. I cannot stop sinning
by chopping off my hands and plucking out my eyes. If I cut
off my right hand, my left hand will commit sin. If I took out
my right eye, my left eye. If I was, if I had no arms or
legs and couldn't see in my heart, I'd still sin. Have you ever
met a blind man who didn't sin? Or a person who had no arms and
legs? They're sinners still! Christ
is not telling us to chop and mutilate our bodies. He's teaching
us that in order for us to not sin, we have to be crucified
with Him. We have to be put to death in
the flesh. And that happened because of
our union with Him and in His death. We were raised to be married
to another. Let's pray. Father, help us,
dear Lord, in our hearts to desire above all things to be obedient
to you as dear children. Because we love you for having
disclosed to us your heart and fulfilled for us all requirements
and met all demands in the Lord Jesus Christ, help us to look
to him by faith and to look to no other and to seek satisfaction
in no other and find our assurance only in what he's done for us.
and help us to never trust to ourselves or think of ourselves
as even making a contribution to our salvation because we can
only contribute in a negative way. We are foul and full of
sin, and we must bring all of our help from thee. Lord, save
us for Jesus' sake. Glorify yourself. for all the
good things you've done and thought in your heart and performed by
your son and show to us by faith and help us to lay hold of these
things forever and ever. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.