Following God’s Word- It sounds like it should be so simple. Moses gives the people of Israel a pep talk before entering the Promised Land. More than a pep talk really, a final testament of his will before his death. “See I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. This is not just Moses’ advice this is God’s Word. If you obey the commandments set before you, if you love the LORD your God by walking in His ways, keeping his commandments, then you shall live and multiply and the Lord will bless you. A clear choice life or death, good or evil. It sounds so simple.
Jesus started to teach the people about life in God’s kingdom. It sounded so true and beautiful. Blessed are you! Salt of the earth, light of the world. The blessings of life in the kingdom abound. Following God’s Word is surely so simple and easy.
Then Jesus dove deeply into the nature of our sin. Murder, Adultery, Divorce, Oaths. Things became complicated very rapidly. What sounds so simple turns out instead to be so hard.
In Phillip Yancey’s Book, “The Jesus I never knew” he records the results of a professor friend of his assigning the sermon on the mount as an essay topic at Texas A&M University. Some of the student reactions to the sermon on the mount were as follows: “There is an old saying that you shouldn’t believe everything you read, and it applies in this case”
“The stuff the churches preach is extremely strict and allows for almost no fun without thinking it is a sin or not”
“I did not like the essay “Sermon on the Mount” It was hard to read and made me feel like I had to be perfect and no one is.”
“The things asked in this sermon are absurd. To look at a woman is adultery. That is the most extreme , stupid inhuman statement that I have ever heard.”
Clearly for many of these students- perhaps some who had never read the Bible before, Jesus’ teaching caused offense. Why does Jesus have to make things so complicated?
“You have heard that it was said of those of old.” Jesus makes a contrast with what people tend to believe. You know those statements like “The Lord does not give you more than you can handle.” Jesus is not referring to the scripture when he refers to what was said of old. Jesus did not say some of the phrases he says elsewhere about the scripture, “It is written, the scripture says, Isaiah says, Moses says, God’s Word declares.”
Instead Jesus is talking about what people have interpreted about the scripture. What Rabbis teach, what people have assumed about how to follow God’s law. Jesus is referring to conventional wisdom of the day and popular teachings of the day which tried to make things easy.
These were teachings meant to give us a sense of our righteousness in fulfilling the law. Teachings that take into account that we are only human and sometimes a good American just wants to be able to have a rich dinner, watch a racy movie or super bowl halftime show and unite with others in a common hatred of our our enemies. What could be more American, I mean “godly” than that?
You have heard it said… but I say to you. “I say to you” The God of Isaac, and Jacob says to you, ‘the Great I am’ says to you, the Word made flesh says to you… No. you cannot have your cake and eat it too. You cannot hold hate in your hearts and then act like you have kept the law so perfectly. You cannot go your own way and pretend you are choosing life when your life looks remarkably similar to those who choose death.
You have heard, but I say to you. Some Americans may have heard or may think they protect the innocent when they promote abortion. But God’s Word tells us that the sin is there, in the form of murder. And Americans may want to call sex offenders the greatest evil in society, and think I am good, I am not like them, look what they did!
Yet statistically who knows something like one in 4 of these Americans who think this way about their righteousness, pays money with their own pocket books to the pornography industry. There pornography use helps fuel the sexual objectification of our culture that increases broken families and increases abuse.
Jesus begins by identifying the sin that is present when people stop short of murder. Anger. He reminds us how we cannot hold anger at one another and also make right sacrifices before God at the altar. How can we be at peace with God when we hate our fellow brother- a creation of the same God?
Likewise, we cannot expect to find any profit in lengthy disputes with others in court. The fruits of our anger may lead us to a result in the courts that is beyond what we bargained for. Yet we cannot really blame the court for enforcing its own standards because we are the ones who have agreed to play the game of an outside mediator.
Jesus targets the problem of lust, even though the object of your affection is not harmed by the fantasies in your mind as actual adultery would bring about- still in your heart your sin is present to God and threatening to your spiritual well being.
Jesus teaches us that the sinful heart is the source of all evil. The scripture also describes what begins in the heart so easily turns into sinful actions. Proverbs 6:27 “Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?”
Jesus uses the analogy of the worth of getting rid of one body part to save the whole. The point is that it is worth self sacrifice to preserve your spiritual health. Better to sacrifice and practice restraint of one desire in your life than to destroy your ability to have the true pleasure of life in God’s kingdom forever.
Jesus then speaks of divorce. What society said was not so bad to do- a certificate of divorce, have your way to make one person’s life easier, is in fact fueling further sins of adultery for a whole number of people. During Jesus’ time and today the focus was to make divorce easy and with as little conflict as possible. A peaceful release so to speak. Yet Jesus criticizes this false peace for the damage it does to families and children and its contribution to further breaking of the 6th commandment.
Instead believers are called to be the light to the world in relying on the forgiveness of the gospel to survive marital difficulties and show forth the beauty of sacrificial love for the sake of one another and children within the family.
Finally Jesus criticizes the practice of making oaths as conducted at that time. An oath is a solemn promise before God. But how can we know we are able to keep the oath we make? What wisdom is there to promise to God what you may not by reason of your flawed human nature be able to keep? Perhaps to make oaths resembles trying to add an extra layer of authority to your own word and reputation.
But instead in humility Jesus asks us to let our yes and no speak for themselves. Perhaps the most significant sin in the making of oaths is that we are deciding for ourselves what is of such extra importance to us that we are invoking God’s name. And what if God intends for us to learn from a set back and a failure of something we want to happen and we are swearing by heaven that we will make something happen- instead of simply praying Your will be done.
The number of sins and the gravity of our sins comes through loud and clear in this portion of the Sermon on the Mount. We rightly prayed in our collect prayer: “Lord, graciously hear the prayers of Your people that we who justly suffer the consequences of our sin may be mercifully delivered by Your goodness to the glory of Your name”
The consequences of our sins are quite evident as we consider Jesus’ teaching. None of us have reason to escape judgment. We justly deserve the consequences of our sins. Yet the justice that Jesus brings to us is a type of justice that is based on His goodness.
His righteousness takes on our sin and nails it to the cross. His righteousness covers us and brings us before the Father in perfect purity. His righteousness given to us a gift of grace means there is nothing we can do that will make God love us less- no amount of anger, lust or adultery. He has taken all our sins on the cross.
So we walk in love because He has loved us. We heard in our Introit about His righteousness: “Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together 9 before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.”
We have a new heart in Christ when it comes to anger, when it comes to lustful thoughts and divorce. Not as we once walked, but with new life in Christ, with new eyes of the beauty of God’s design for our lives. In Christ we walk in love. Ephesians chapter 5 begins: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice of God.”
Because of what Jesus did for us it is a joy, a delight to imitate Jesus by walking in love. It is because of Jesus’ great love for us- easy.
