Sunday Sermons
Be Ye Holy
Be Ye Holy
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared with what lies within us." (Oliver Wendell Holmes) God has always wanted our hearts, and has always expected from us a standard of behavior quite removed from the vices that pervade our culture.
“For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).
In this section, when Jesus says, “You have heard that” (5:21,27), He is not contrasting His teaching with the Old Testament Law. He obviously had no debate with the Law, for as God, He had given it (Matthew 12:8). He had not come to earth to overturn or contradict the Law, but rather to fulfill everything it predicted (Matthew 5:17-18). The Law actually taught the same moral principles that Jesus lays down in this section. For example, the Law had condemned lust as well as adultery (Matthew 5:27-28; Exodus 20:17). What Jesus is contrasting is the standard set by the scribes and Pharisees with the standard that God had always had.
The Scribes and Pharisees
As you read the later part of Matthew 5, note the amazing similarity between the moral bar set by the scribes and our 21st century American culture:
- Sin only happens when the actual murder occurs (5:21).
- Lust is okay just as long as adultery is avoided (5:27).
- Divorce is fine as long as one files the proper paperwork (5:31).
- Keep your promises—but you can actually choose which promises are the ones you actually must keep (5:33).
- Personal vengeance is acceptable (5:38).
- The only person one must love or treat properly is a “neighbor” which can be narrowly defined as someone just like us or just those that we actually like (5:43).
At the end of this section, Jesus points out that the bar set by the Pharisees was nothing more or less than the moral standard that is seen among non-believers and pagans (5:46-47). God requires more! As Robert von Musil has stated "One does what one is; one becomes what one does." In the rest of the lesson let’s get a little more specific and go into each of these realms:
Murder and Anger: 5:21-26
“But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court” (5:22).
The anger condemned here is not anger directed toward sin (Ephesians 4:26), but rather the type of anger that is so often the seed for such things as murder. It is not hating the things that God hates, but rather, being generally hateful. I find this clarified by the following statement:
“And whoever shall you, ‘You fool’, shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell” (5:22).
There is nothing inherently sinful about calling someone a fool, for fools do exist and the Bible frequently applies this title to people. The book of Proverbs is full of fools (Proverbs 26:3-12). Added to this, Jesus states that God Himself uses this term (Luke 12:20), including in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:26). Years ago I remember talking to a Christian woman that I had not seen in some time. I asked her about her family and then I asked her about her brother she said, “Mark, my brother is the fool of Proverbs”. When she said this I don’t think she sinned, for the statement was full of loving sorrow and it was accurate. One application of what Jesus is saying here certainly must be directed at the all too common practice of calling people horrible names that one does not even know. If someone does something that simply annoys or inconveniences another, chances are, in our culture, they'll be called the worse name in the book. The world often gives this type of anger a free pass. Yet this is exactly the type of anger that makes people guilty enough to end up in hell forever. Don't be hateful.
Lust: 5:28
“But I say to you, that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart”
Jesus’ audience may have been just as surprised at this statement as our modern culture. Some hear this and exclaim, “What? That’s impossible”. Yet such a statement only reveals how far away from goodness we have strayed. Jesus never said, “Don’t look at the opposite gender”. Rather He said, “Do not look with lust”. There is a lawful way to look at women, a way that honors them and God (1 Timothy 5:1-2). Observe the universal nature of the statement, “everyone”. This applies to men of any age. This is one reason I like the Bible, it is completely honest and it tackles the issues that the culture refuses to address. As with anger, the culture gives lust a free pass, “It's all right to look just as long as you don’t touch”. Yet think of damage such a mindset can incur: " Good and evil both increase at compound interest. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible. (C.S. Lewis) "My will was perverse and lust had grown from it, and when I gave in to lust habit was born, and when I did not resist the habit it became a necessity. These were the links which together formed what I have called my chain, and it held me fast in the duress of servitude." (St. Augustine) Free yourself from the chains caused by lust.
Divorce: 5:31-32
The Pharisees and scribes had read Deuteronomy 24:1-3 and come to the wrong conclusion that Moses was giving a green light for divorce for any cause—or at least for any cause that ‘we ‘ might find offensive. Yet that passage never taught such. The divorced woman was not safe, rather she was defiled (24:4). And making it “legal”, getting all the proper paper work done, did not make any difference to God. I am impressed that Jesus dealt with the matter of divorce from every angle:
- The only cause for divorce with the right of remarriage is the sexual unfaithfulness of one’s mate (Matthew 5:32/19:9).
- The man who divorces his wife without such a cause and remarries is committing adultery in that new relationship (Matthew 19:9). He is cheating on his first wife (Mark 10;11).
- The woman who divorces her husband without such a cause and remarries is in adultery as well (Mark 10:12).
- The woman who is unlawfully divorced is often caused to commit adultery, for she often remarries (Matthew 5:32).
- Anyone who marries an divorced woman, that is, a woman who was put away not for lawful cause or for lawful cause, is equally involved in adultery (Matthew 5:32).
Vows/Oaths/Promises: 5:33-37
The Scribes and Pharisees had come up with a very clever way of getting out of promises or commitments. To them, like people today, some promises and commitments were not binding (Matthew 23:16-22). They were masters of making or creating moral loopholes. Jesus is clear here, He is not impressed by such legal wrangling and fine print. A "yes" means "yes", and a "no" means "no". We might not be making religious vows today, but we do enter into commitments and contracts. If you sign on the line—God expects you to keep your promise.
Revenge: 5:38-42
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” (5:38). As with divorce, the religious leaders of the today had interpreted this statement to give them a green light to take their own personal revenge. Yet the passage had never taught that. Many people today are just as confused over this expression, and such confusion would never happen if people simply read the verses that surround this verse in the Old Testament (Exodus 21:24-27). In the immediate context if a man struck a servant and a eye was damaged or tooth was knocked out, the servant did not get a free punch in return, rather, the servant was allowed to go free. When you are treated unfairly, it honors God to respond like Jesus responded when He was treated unfairly: with grace and a heart open to reconciliation.
Love: 5:43-48
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy’” (5:43). Observe that the beginning of this statement is a quote from the Old Testament, but the end is not. Here is where men took a command and added their own footnote to it. The Old Testament did not teach Israel to hate their enemies, rather it said things like, “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; lest the Lord see it and be displeased” (Proverbs 24:17); “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink” (25:21). Jesus then gives some very practical things to do in reference to an enemy— love them, that is, do for them what is in their best spiritual interest, and pray for them, because God continues to give His enemies acts of mercy (5:45) and wants us to reflect His beautiful character in our interactions with one another.
What is the Difference?
“For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” (5:46-47).
This is a convicting section, and it presents very clear boundaries. So where do we fit? Are we living differently than the world, or have we, in this area and that, come down to a standard where everyone else in the world is? I am struck by the fact that the Pharisees and Scribes thought they were living by a high standard and the truth was, they were living really no differently, especially on the inside, from their non-Jewish neighbors.
As your Heavenly Father
The person we need to be modeling is God. In this section it is so tempting to look at a verse and then say, “Yea, but what about this complex situation?” A more beautiful heart would spend more time thinking of how he or she could implement these verses in his or her life, rather than trying to think of situations in which these teachings would seem impractical to us.
"The time is always right to do what is right" (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Mark Dunagan/Beaverton Church of Christ/www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net
