All right, let's look at Matthew
chapter 5. Now, one of the things that if
you read and study a lot of commentators on the Sermon on the Mount, it's
not uncommon for people who call themselves Christian in dealing
with the Sermon on the Mount to turn it into nothing more
than a legalistic message, trying to inspire people to seek to
establish their own righteousness by their works. That's very common. That's how they approach the
Sermon on the Mount. Well, how you approach it, given
the truth that is revealed here, determines how you will interpret
it, obviously. This message that we're going
to look at, beginning at verse 21, and you might notice in the
lesson, the title of the message is, How Righteous Must We Be? Christ had already said, For
I say unto you, in verse 20, that except your righteousness
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you
shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Well, exactly
how righteous must I be? It's kind of like asking the
question, how good must I be to be saved? And then that establishes,
to me, the context of what we're going to study. And you might
notice I've got in your lesson cited Matthew 5, 21 and 22. And then I jump down to 27 and
28. Now that's what I want to deal with just to lay the foundation
of this whole passage. Next week I'm going to come back
up to verse 21 and we'll go down through the whole thing. And
I'll show you the reason I'm doing that. But exactly how righteous
must I be to enter heaven? Now he's talking about a righteousness
that gives a sinner right and title to enter heaven. To enter
the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, rather. Well, look
over at verse 48. That's the conclusion of this
section of the Sermon on the Mount. And here's what he says.
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven
is perfect. Well, that answers the question.
He's talking about perfection. He's talking about what I call
the perfection of righteousness. And this is the perfection of
righteousness that can only be found in the person and finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ as the surety and substitute
of his people. You will not find it anywhere
else. You may imagine you find it elsewhere,
just like the scribes and the Pharisees. They imagined they
had it in their works. People today, they try to find
it in themselves. A perfection of righteousness,
which they call a new nature. And the Bible will not back that
up. Yes, if you want to say we have a new nature, you can talk
about the new heart, you can talk about the spirit of God
who imparts life, gives us eyes to see and ears to hear, but
what we see and hear when the spirit convicts us is that our
only righteousness is found in the person and work of Christ.
And it's his righteousness imputed. This is the perfection of righteousness
that God imputes to His people by grace through Christ. In other
words, we didn't have anything to do with it. Christ did it
all. For by one offering, as I said,
by one offering, He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.
It's the perfection of righteousness from which God gives spiritual
life to his people and brings us to faith in Christ and repentance
of dead works. You see, our believing is not
our righteousness, but it's because righteousness is imputed to us
from Christ that we come to believe. Our repenting is not our righteousness,
Christ is. We repent of thinking that anything
else. could be righteousness for us.
And to show the extent of the perfection of righteousness,
what he does in beginning at verse 21 and on through to the
end of this chapter is he shows the perfect righteousness of
the law of God. How righteous must I be? Now,
a couple ways that people approach this sermon is this, you look
at that verse 20 again, he says, your righteousness must exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. And a lot
of people say, well that means you've got to be more sincere,
more honest, and less hypocritical than the Pharisees. Well my friend,
if that's what you think, you know what that is? That's Pharisaism. In other words, it's like saying,
is Christ, when he preaches this message, is he saying, now you
guys have to be better people than those Pharisees? Well, if that's what he's saying,
he's promoting Phariseeism, but that's not what he's saying.
And then another way that some people approach this sermon is
they say, well, what he's doing here is he's showing a brand
new law. Like, for example, look at verse
21. He says, you've heard that it was said by them of old, thou
shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger
of the judgment, but I say unto you. And they say, well now here
Christ has given us a new law, a brand new law, that's only
under the new covenant. And he says, I say unto you that
whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger
of the judgment. In other words, he's saying under
the old covenant, the only thing that was required was simply
not performing the outward act of sin, not committing the outward
act, but it said nothing about the heart. Well, first of all,
that's not true, and I'm going to show you that. All right? And so here's a new law for us
under the new covenant. Now, granted, the new covenant
is just that. It's a new covenant. But that
newness refers not to newness of truth, but newness accomplished
in time. You understand what I'm saying?
You see the old covenant was given to the nation Israel from
Sinai to the cross and the new covenant was the accomplishment
in time of the everlasting covenant of grace made before time. It's
the accomplishment in time of Christ actually redeeming us
from our sins on the cross and from then on. So there is new
things there in the sense of time and accomplishment. But
it's not new truth, and let me show you this. For example, number
one, I've got this in your lesson, but number one, as stated, we've
talked about it, Matthew 5, 20, the righteousness that Christ
is talking about. Now, whatever he's talking about
in the measure of righteousness here, it's a righteousness that
you must have that qualifies you or me to enter the kingdom
of heaven. He says, unless you have it,
you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Now I know that nobody
is going to enter the kingdom of heaven without having been
born again. But that's the fruit of the righteousness
that we have. That's the effect. That's the
result. So whatever righteousness he's
talking about, you've got to have it to enter heaven. And
the only place, the Bible says in Romans 10, verse 4, Christ
is the end of the law. for righteousness to them that
believe. And it's clear. But here's the
second thing. The law of God in both the old
and the new covenant is given to do what? In the hands of the
Holy Spirit to convict us of sin. Show us the impossibility
of attaining or maintaining righteousness by our works of the law. Now,
somebody said, well, should we be better people than we are? If you want to say the Pharisees,
okay. You know, I always tell people, I say, well, when you
think of the Pharisees, you're talking about a large group of
people there. And it's just like in, let's
say, false churches today. You've got people who are just
flat hypocrites, and then you've got people who are serious about
their religion. Don't you? I mean, where I come
from, I mean, we knew guys who'd show up on Easter and Christmas,
and that's about it, and then they'd live, as they say, live
like hell the rest of the year. We knew that. But we had somebody,
when the door was open, they were there seriously, sincerely,
and honestly, and tried to live what they believed. You know
anybody like that? So the thing about it is, somebody
said, well, shouldn't we be better people? Shouldn't we be more
honest and more sincere? Sure, of course. But that's not
our righteousness before God. Christ is. So the law of God
was given to continually convict us of our sin and drive us to
Christ for righteousness. And that was under the old covenant
and it's still under the new. Whatever commandments Christ
gave under the new covenant, he never gives any commandment
for a sinner to try to establish their own righteousness before
God. It's always look to Christ. That's what I'm gonna be preaching
on this morning. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. All right, here's the third thing. The scribes
and the Pharisees openly taught the law as a way of righteousness
by their deeds under the law. Now they openly taught that.
You remember the rich young ruler that came to Christ? It's recorded
in Matthew chapter 19. And he said, good master, what
good thing must I do to inherit or attain eternal life? And so
Christ quoted the second table of the law, and it comes down
to where it was described. He summarized, love your neighbor
as yourself, which includes your worst enemy. He's gonna show
that in the Sermon on the Mount. And the rich young man went away
sorrowful. Well, why was he sorrowful? Because he had been taught all
of his life that if he could be good enough by his works,
he would earn his way into salvation and eternal life. That's what
he'd been taught. So the Pharisees taught that.
But now I want you to consider this. Much of what they taught
was right. Now, what do I mean by that?
Well, look at verse 21 again. He says, You have heard that
it was said by them of old, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever
shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. Well, that's
right, isn't it? Murder is sinful. Now, that judgment there. Some
commentators say that he's simply talking about the court of man's
judgment under the Jewish law. where if a person was accused
of murder and tried, that person would be convicted and sentenced
to death, the death penalty. And that's what, under the old
covenant, that was true. Murderers, convicted murderers,
were to be punished with the death penalty. And that was justice
under the old covenant. Some commentators say that this
judgment here is talking about the judgment of God to eternal
damnation. But here's the point. It doesn't
really matter how you look upon that. In God's eyes, doesn't
all sin deserve death, the death penalty? Is there a sin that
you can think of that God would look at and impute to a sinner
and say, well, I'm going to let that guy off because that's not
a bad sin and that doesn't deserve the death penalty. And the answer
is no. The wages of sin is death. Isn't that right? Whether it's
murder or whatever, all sin deserves death. So when the Pharisees
said, well, look, All, you know, you shall not kill. That's one
of the Ten Commandments. And those who kill, they're in
danger of the judgment. That's sentence to death. They
taught it right there. Look down at verse 27 now. It
says, you have heard that it was said by them of old, thou
shalt not commit adultery. Well, that's true too. That's
a sin. So when the Pharisees spoke that
way, they weren't telling a lie. Murder and adultery is a sin. But as I said, the scribes and
the Pharisees, now here's another thing they taught, and they either
taught it by implication or they taught it by explicit testimony. And they would say something
like this or imply something like this, well it's a sin to
do the act but it's not a sin to think it. Now, you say, well, how do you
know the Pharisees taught that? Do you know that kind of thinking
is natural to man? For example, there's a lot of
people who think, well, you know, if I live a good life and I'm
not arrested and tried and guilty of any crime and sentenced by
man's court of judgment, then I'm okay in the sight of God.
That's just natural. be good enough, and if you're
cleared in man's court, you'll certainly be cleared in God's
court. So therefore, it was common for them to imagine that if they
didn't commit the outward act, then it was not sinful and deserving
of death. Now, when I first moved to Albany
and started passing this church, you say, well, somebody said,
well, that's far-fetched. I don't know what I am. When
I first moved to Albany and started passing this church, there was
a man standing out here in a podium. who made this statement, he said,
it's not a sin to be tempted, it's a sin to give in to it. Now you know what he just said? If you don't commit murder, it's
okay, but now think, if you commit murder, that's a sin, but if
you just think it, that's all right. That's the implication
there, and you know that's not true. All right. Well, here's the fourth thing.
Sins of the heart, sins of thought, sins of motive, sins of purpose,
were just as forbidden under the old covenant law as they
are under the new covenant law. That's not new, folks. Now granted,
if you just thought about murdering somebody, you could not be taken
before the Jewish court and condemned. That's true. But it was made
clear, even under the old covenant, that sins of thought, sins of
heart, were sinful just as the act. When the lawyer, for example,
the Jewish lawyer, asked Christ, which is the greatest of the
commandments? Remember what he said? Well here it is, he's summed
it up. Love God with all your heart,
soul, mind, purpose. Love your neighbor as yourself.
He's dealing with the heart there. And then I want you to turn to
the book of Romans, chapter seven. I wanna show you something here
about the Apostle Paul. Let me, as you're turning there,
consider the following concerning the commandments of the Old Covenant
law. This, let me just, and I've got
this, this is written out in your lesson. Deuteronomy 6.5
says, this is part of the, this is Moses reading the Old Covenant
to the Hebrew children before they came into the Promised Land.
And he says, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine,
what? Thine heart. And with all thy
soul and with all thy mind. Now, if you don't love God with
all your heart, what is that? That's sin. He says in Deuteronomy 10, 12,
and now Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee
but to fear the Lord thy God, that means to worship him, respect
him, believe him, to walk in his ways and to love him, and
to serve the Lord thy God with all thy what? Thy heart, and
with all thy soul. So under the old, you know, judging
the sins of the heart to be sinful is not new under the new covenant. Now, look at the Apostle Paul
in Romans chapter seven, and look at verse seven. He says, what shall we say then?
This is Romans 7 verse 7. Is the law sin? Now what Paul's
saying there is that because we're sinful people, does that
mean there's a problem with the law? And he says, God forbid,
there's no problem with the law. And then he says, nay, I had
not known sin. Now do you reckon, now think
about this. Do you reckon that Paul is saying here that before
he was converted, he didn't know that murder was a sin? Well,
you know better than that. He knew murder was a sin. He
knew adultery was a sin. You've heard it said by them
of old. That's sin. When a person murders somebody,
that's sin. They deserve death. A person
who commits adultery. They deserved death. That was
the penalty. You remember when they got the
woman caught in adultery, John chapter eight, I think it is,
and they were gonna stone her? Well, did the woman under the
old covenant law, Moses, did she deserve death? Yes. What
was the problem there? Well, they were using the law
self-righteously. First of all, where was the man
she committed? She was caught in the act, they
said. Where was the man? I don't know who the man was,
but he must have been influential. They let him go and got her. Secondly, she wasn't brought
before the Jewish court. That was mob violence. God never allowed mob violence
and vigilante justice under the Old Covenant. She was to be tried,
the evidence brought against her, and convicted. That was
the problem. But did the sin of adultery deserve
it? Does the sin of murder? So Paul says here in verse seven,
what shall we say then, is the law sin? God forbid, nay, I had
not known sin, but by the law. It was the law that showed me
what is sinful, for I had not known lust. Now, lust is a sin
of the heart. Now, hold your finger there and
look back here at Matthew 5.27. He says, you've heard that it
was said by them of old, thou shalt not commit adultery, but
I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after
her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. Well,
that was just as true under the old covenant. Paul said, I had
not known lust except the law had said, thou shalt not what?
Covet. The very last of the 10 commandments,
thou shalt not covet. Covetousness is a sin of the
heart, folks. What is covetousness? It's desiring
something that rightfully belongs to another for yourself. I think it's in the book of Colossians
that the apostle talked about covetousness, which is idolatry. Well, that can refer to a person
who desires something that belongs to another to the point that
they worship it, not that they think it'll save them, but that
it consumes them. But you know what really covetousness,
which is idolatry, really is? It's when you unlawfully attribute
to yourself something that rightfully belongs only to God. That's idolatry.
For example, when a man thinks that he can
work his way into righteousness. The Bible says righteousness
belongs only to God, and the gospel is the revelation of the
righteousness of God. So when I attribute that to myself,
it's idolatry. You see, I attribute my righteousness,
which has been imputed to me, to Christ. It belongs to Him. If I'd had anything to do with
it, it'd be anything but righteousness. And that's the case. Whenever
a person thinks that they are the crux of salvation, that it
all is conditioned on them and rests on them, that's idolatry. Number one, the God who accepts
such things is an idol. He's not the God of the Bible.
But number two, the Bible says salvation is of the Lord. Conditioned on Christ now he
gives it to his people But it's his to give You understand that
all right now look here at Romans 7 7 Paul said in verse 8 but
sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought or worked in me all manner
of concupiscence that concupiscence is another word for lust He says,
for without the law, sin was dead. What he's saying is when
I didn't understand the reality and the extent of the law, I
thought sin was dead. I thought I was not a sinner
like the Pharisees and the scribes. That's what Paul was. He was
a Pharisee before he was converted. He says in verse 9, for I was
alive without the law once. Now here's a man who's trying
to keep the law. Over in Philippians 3, he said,
as touching the law, a Pharisee. The righteousness which is of
the law, blameless, he said. But he said, I was alive without
the law. When I didn't understand the reality of the law that would
slay me in the hands of the Spirit, I thought I was okay. I was alive
spiritually. But when the commandment came,
sin revived, and I died. Now the context says, what's
he talking about? That reality of thou shalt not covet, the
sin of the heart. And he says in verse 10, in the
commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death,
for sin taking occasion by the commandment deceived me, and
by it slew me. Now notice there, the law didn't
deceive him. What deceived him? Sin did. What is he talking about? That
word sin is the same word you find in Romans 3, 23, for all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. In other words,
Paul said, I thought by my religious actions, I came up to snuff. I hit the mark. I was righteous
and alive. But when I found out how far
this law went to convict me of sin, even in sins of thought
and heart, I died. Sin revived. And it slew me. Go back to Matthew 5. That's
what Christ is doing here. You can't listen. All of this shows us the impossibility
of a sinner being able to keep the law in order to attain righteousness. Now let's read these two verses,
verse 21. You've heard that it was said
by them of old, thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill
shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, that whosoever
is angry with his brother without a cause. Now, somebody said,
now everybody, when you get angry, you think you've got a cause,
don't you? Well, if he hadn't done that, I wouldn't be, you
know, all that stuff. You know, we justify ourselves.
What he's talking about here is what we would call righteous
indignation. Okay? God is angry with the wicked,
the scripture says. That's not sin for God to be
angry with the wicked because God is acting in justice. But
let me tell you, let's put it this way. You say, well, I know
there are times that I've done it justly. Well, are there any
times you haven't done it justly? Well, of course. We've all sinned
and come short of the glory of God. So that's what he's saying,
with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment,
and whosoever shall say unto his brother, Rekah. Now that
word Rekah, you might see in your concordance here, it's translated
vain fellow. What Rekah is, it's a term of
indignation, but in a way of contempt. you have contempt for
someone, it's an abusive term, and really what it is, it's judging
another person to be worthless. Even damned, you know. I'll give you an example of it,
would be Romans 14, where you had weak believers judging mature
believers to be lost. because they had the liberty
of grace. They would eat and drink things
that you just wouldn't think about eating and drinking. Go
places where you just wouldn't think about that. Christian wouldn't
do that, you know, that kind of thing. That's the Rekha situation. And then he says in verse 22,
he says, but whosoever shall say thou fool shall be in danger
of hell fire. That's judgment. And thou fool
in this context describes someone who we judged deserving to be
damned. That's what he's talking about.
It's not just saying something is foolish. The Bible says those
who don't believe the gospel are foolish. Man by nature is
a fool. But this is talking about calling
someone a fool with contempt in the sense of they deserve
damnation, as if we don't. I mean, we have to work, our
whole lives as believers under the grace of God, we walk under
this umbrella that if God ever gave me what I deserved and what
I've earned, what would it be? Damnation. Blessed are those
to whom the Lord imputed not iniquity. That's what we are
in. Lord, if thou Lord shouldest
mark iniquities, who among us would stand? From the best of
us to the worst of us. None of us would stand. We have
righteousness in Christ alone. And then go down to verse 27.
You've heard that it was said by them of old, thou shalt not
commit adultery, but I say unto you that whosoever looketh on
a woman to lust after hath committed adultery with her already in
his heart. Now, again, he's not giving a
new law. He's just showing the reality
of what's always been. Somebody asked the question one
time, when did Adam sin? Somebody said, well, when he
bit the fruit. No, it was before that, wasn't
it? When he thought about it. When he did it in his heart,
he sinned. Well, in seeing this, reality
of the law, we need to keep in mind that Christ is showing the
utter impossibility. of any sinner being saved, being
blessed, being accepted with God, being justified, being righteous,
being forgiven based on their law keeping. And I've got in
your lesson here quoted Hebrews 4.12-13 where it says this, the
word of God is quick and powerful, sharper
than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit and the joints and marrow, and a discerner of
the thoughts and intents of the heart. And neither is there any
creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things
are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do."
Knowing that God looks upon the heart is a convicting message,
isn't it? Shows us that our only hope is
to have our hearts cleansed, not by our works of the law,
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by the
blood of Christ. And that's the only cleansing,
isn't it? The righteousness of God in Christ, okay.