1. Most Likely to Succeed
Related MediaMatthew 7:13-141
[Rearrange chairs into very narrow center aisle, wide side aisles. Someone handing out donuts at top of narrow aisle only to those who walked down narrow center aisle. deceptive signs? One usher telling people that donuts are straight ahead at the end of the center aisle.]
Introduction
Nobody likes to be told what to do. And given the choice, most of us would choose to be given a choice. We want selection. We like to leave our options open. We want to be able to decide things for ourselves. Well, this morning, I’ve got some good news for you.
Series: You Have a Choice!
God gives you a choice. That’s right! He allows you to decide certain things for yourself.
All this year, we’ve been studying the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. It’s a lesson about God’s Kingdom that Jesus taught to his followers. Here at the end of the year, we come to the end of the lesson. Jesus has told us that although we enter the kingdom by God’s grace, the kingdom and its citizens are characterized by righteousness—not just an external conformity to the rules, but the heartfelt inner righteousness of pure thoughts, motives and attitudes. We need to be investing in the kingdom, laying up eternal treasures in heaven instead of temporary treasures on earth. And in our relationships with each other, we should treat each other well—just the way we’d want to be treated.
Now Jesus closes his lesson by giving us a choice. In fact, he gives us three choices:
· Where are you going?
· Who are your guides? and
· What will you change?
Today we want to take a look at the first choice that Jesus lays before us: Where Are You Going? What is the purpose and direction of your life?
The Bible says, there are Two Paths you can take in life. And you are free to make the choice. God gives you that freedom. But as you decide, there are a few things you should know about these two options. One of them works and the other one doesn’t. One of them feels right and the other one doesn’t. One of them is popular and the other one isn’t.
Most Likely to Succeed
These two paths lead to two very different destinations. Your selection is a matter of life and death. One of these paths is most likely to succeed. The other is doomed to fail. The verses we’re studying today, Matthew 7:13-14, are all about the choice between these two paths. These verses tell us something important about the choice we have to make and they tell us something important about ourselves.
Although the choice is ours to make, Jesus begins with some wise advice:
Matthew 7:13 Enter through the narrow gate.
Even before we examine the two paths stretching in front of us, Jesus wants us to have the inside scoop: think narrow. “I’m about to give you a choice between two doors. And by the way, if you’re paying attention, pick the narrow door.”
The Path To Death
Then he gives us a contrast between these two pathways.
For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
The first option is a wide gate and a broad path. The words used here describe a spacious, roomy, expansive highway to travel on. It’s just the kind of road you might choose. Travel along this road is easy and there’s ample room to accommodate everyone and all their baggage.
self indulgence
Destruction both now and for ever.
Death |
Life | |
The Onramp |
wide |
|
Road Conditions |
broad |
|
Traffic Report |
many |
|
Destination |
destruction |
The Path To Life
[14] But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Even the beginning of the path is restrictive.
narrow is literally “pressed together”, restricted (tribulation)
The implication is not spacious, but crowded, hard to navigate.
KJV said “strait and narrow”, but strait means restricted, like the Strait of Magellan, not “straight” meaning without curves.
repentance, humility, discipline, persecution
self-sacrifice, self-denial, spiritual resistance and conflict
a minority religion
Oswald Sanders: “A West Indian who had chosen Mohammedanism in preference to Christianity, gave as his reason that ‘Mohammedanism is a noble, broad path—there is room for a man and his sins on it. The way of Christ is a narrow way—the sins have to be left behind.’” (p. 149)
Life both now and for ever.
Death |
Life | |
The Onramp |
wide |
small |
Road Conditions |
broad |
narrow |
Traffic Report |
many |
few |
Destination |
destruction |
life |
If you’ve entered the narrow gate, don’t expect to fit in, to be popular.
Expect continued persecution, restrictions, not a life of ease.
Many people don’t have a problem with Jesus being a Savior, but a lot of people have a hard time accepting Jesus as THE only Savior.
John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Acts 4:12 Salvation is found in no one else [but Jesus], for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.
1 John 5:11-12 God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
[Clip: “Planes, Trains” You’re going the wrong way!]
[Clip: “Planes, Trains” Do you feel this car is roadworthy? Yes, I do.]
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Which Path Will You Choose?
You have a choice—you can either choose to find life through Christ or through any other means. But the idea that all paths lead to God and to eternal life is a fallacy. Seeking life through anything but Christ is the most popular choice, usually an easier path, with fewer requirements and less restrictive. Most people choose that path to find life. Seeking life through Christ alone is a less popular choice, sometimes difficult, with specific requirements which eliminate many from the path (by their own choice). Jesus, however, is the only way to life. All other paths lead to death. Christianity is exclusive. All are welcome, but only those who come will be saved.
Notes:
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
1 Copyright © 2004 by Lewis B. Bell III. This is the edited manuscript of Lesson 1 in the Kingdom Choices series delivered by Chip Bell at Fellowship Bible Church Arapaho in Dallas, TX on November 28, 2004. Anyone is at liberty to use this lesson for educational purposes only, with credit.
Related Topics: Basics for Christians
2. Beware of Sheep Imitations
Related MediaMatthew 7:15-231
Introduction
[Print real bulletin and fake bulletin (Bible studies on prosperity, race hatred, healing, universalism, Jesus as example, homosexual marriage)]
Beware of Sheep Imitations
The last one arrived just about two weeks ago. It was in a plain, simple white envelope. But the message inside was anything but ordinary. Besides the words which explained why the letter had been sent, the message really consisted of only two words: “Go out.” The thing which made this message extraordinary was that it claimed to be a message from God. The letter was from a woman whom I have never met and who, as far as I know, has never been to our church. But, she claimed, God had given her a message to deliver to us: “Go out.” The staff debated for a while whether that meant we should evacuate or head to the restaurant before we finally decided that it must be about evangelism. Every once in a while we get a letter like that here at the church from someone who claims to have a message for us from the Lord.
Or perhaps you’ve received an email from some Christian in Nigeria who has recently come to possess a huge amount of money that is being hidden from corrupt government forces. They’re writing to you because they want the money to be used for God’s work. So if you’ll just help them get a million dollars or so out of the country, they would be happy to share with you what God has provided.
All around us are voices that claim to speak God’s truth. They tell us what to believe, what to do, how to vote, how to spend our money and our time, how to raise our children and how to navigate our relationships. They claim to tell us our destiny. They claim to tell us the truth. But the truth is that many of the voices out there that claim to speak to us on behalf of God—most of them are fakers, cheats and phonies.
All you need to do is wander through any bookstore or flip your way through a few religious programs on TV and you will encounter the fakers. Their words are confident and persuasive. Their followers are many. Their results are remarkable. But they do not speak the truth.
The Bible is a dangerous book—perhaps the most dangerous book in the world—dangerous because it claims to be God’s own words, the infallible, inerrant, authoritative voice of God. So it is no wonder that people turn to the Bible to back up their own ideas and values. Down through history, and in our own day, the words of this book have been twisted to support all kinds of perversions. The reason people use the Bible that way is because they hope to draw from its authority. They are trying to tell us, “This isn’t just my idea. This is what God says. So you’d better listen to him.”
Nobody likes to be told what to do. And given the choice, most of us would choose to be given a choice. We want selection. We like to leave our options open. We want to be able to decide things for ourselves. And fortunately for us, we have a choice.
Series: You Have a Choice!
God gives us a choice. He lets us decide certain things for ourselves.
As we continue our study of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, we’ve come to the final section, where Jesus presents his followers with three choices:
Where are you going? Who are your guides? and What will you change?
Last week, we talked about Where Are You Going? We saw that we are presented with two paths in life. One is a broad path where the going is easy and the travelers are many. That path looks like the right one, but it leads to death. And then there is another path: narrow, twisted and torturous. Not many people find it, but that path leads to life. In fact, that is the only path that leads to life. Jesus says we get to choose which of those two paths we will take.
Today we come to our second choice: Who Are Your Guides? Which voices will you choose to follow?
The Bible says there are Two Teachers you can listen to for directions. And you are free to make the choice. God gives you that freedom. But as you decide, there is something you should know about these two teachers. One of them speaks the truth and the other one doesn’t. One of them is genuine and the other is a phony, a faker. The path you choose will determine whether or not you find the WAY. The teacher you choose will determine whether or not you find the TRUTH.
Who are your guides?
Baaad Disguise
Be alert for false teaching. (15)
In reminding us that we have this choice, Jesus also gives us some advice. Beware, he says, of sheep imitations. Not everything that looks genuine really is genuine. Not everyone who claims to speak God’s truth really does. There are a lot of voices out there. It’s easy to suppose that someone is speaking the truth because they use God’s name or because they quote the Bible. But Jesus says we must be on the lookout for false teaching.
Matthew 7:15-23 [15] "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
Prophet: not someone who tells the future, but someone who speaks for God.
Sheep’s clothing: they appear friendly & harmless, like a brother
Ferocious wolves: Dangerous. Their desire is to fleece you. Devour you. But you cannot tell that from their words or their outward appearance.
It’s the falsehood that devours you.
Be alert for false teaching. (15)
Jesus calls us to healthy skepticism. Be careful about the truth. Don’t swallow everything just because the name Jesus is on it. Don’t be so naïve. Amazing how naïve we can be. For example, The Declaration of Independence is often referenced as part of our nation’s deep Christian roots because it refers to “God” and “the Creator”. Yet the man who drafted the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson, clearly rejected Jesus Christ as the Son of God and rejected the Bible as God’s authoritative Word. The parts he found convenient he kept and the rest of it he literally cut out. We cannot accept something as true just because it comes from a Christian or someone who sounds like he might be Christian. (Movies where people talk about “Jesus”.) We must be alert for false teaching.
How can we tell the difference? One important way is by their words.
The test for a true prophet was, “Does his message agree with the rest of the Bible.” That’s a good test for anyone’s teaching, any book, any preacher, any idea, any philosophy, or any message supposedly from God. Apply it to me. Apply it to everyone you hear.
That’s why it’s important to know what the Bible says and know how to study it and understand it. That’s why we offer classes Wed nights.
Class: Unwrapping the Meaning of the Bible.
Wednesday nights, Jan 5 to Mar 9, 6:30, Fellowship House
So how do you tell the difference between true teaching and false teaching? One way is to compare the teaching to the rest of the Bible.
But there’s also something else you can use to evaluate.
Plastic Fruit
Evaluate teaching by what it produces. (16-20)
Jesus says we should evaluate teaching by what it produces. That is, what is the outcome of this teaching? What happens in the lives of the people who follow this guide? (Not the results. Not just the immediate outcome, but the long-term outcome.) How would God judge it?
Jesus uses an illustration, a metaphor, to describe what he means.
[16] By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
[17] Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. [18] A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
[19] Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. [20] Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
Evaluate teaching by what it produces. (16-20)
One of the best ways to tell the difference between a teacher who is genuinely teaching God’s Word and one who is falsely claiming to teach God’s Word is by their lifestyle. Does their life support their claim to follow Jesus? Do they themselves obey? (Not like the Pharisees.)
Be wary of spiritual leaders who live by different rules than the rules that apply to everyone else.
Doesn’t mean perfect obedience. No one is perfect.
But this is why a significant moral failure destroys a pastor’s ability to preach or lead a church.
Almost anyone can put on a good act. But no one can hide forever. Someone’s true character eventually comes out in their actions.
That’s why ministry in relationship. mini church
You will recognize them by their fruit.
In v. 21, Jesus has one other warning to give us about false teachers.
Name Dropping
Not everyone who names God knows God. (21-23)
A lot of people who claim to be Christians do not really have a relationship with Christ.
[21] "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Entering the kingdom: being saved.
It isn’t a profession of faith that matters. It’s doing God’s will. Obedience.
Again, this doesn’t mean perfect obedience. It doesn’t mean we earn our way to heaven by doing the right thing.
It means that real faith (trust) will always result in obedience. “Let loose.”
Not saying “God”, but living differently because of God. CHRISTMAS
[22] Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?'
Note that Jesus presents himself as the one who will be the ultimate Judge on Judgment Day. He’s not just a nice guy. He’s not someone who is so full of love that He will let everyone into heaven in the end.
He presents himself as the one who will even tell some of his followers that they have deceived themselves and they will not be allowed into the kingdom.
[23] Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
Never knew: no relationship
Not everyone who names God knows God. (21-23)
People may admire Jesus. They may claim to believe in Him and even to follow him. But profession is not enough. Serving him is not enough. Even doing miracles in his name is not enough. It’s all about relationship. If you know Jesus, then you’re part of his kingdom.
If you know Jesus, then you obey him. maybe not perfectly, but deliberately.
If you don’t know him, if you don’t have a relationship with him, then you will be excluded. (not by me!) But you will be excluded by Jesus.
Conclusion
This morning when you walked in, you got a bulletin.
Everyday you have a choice. Who will you listen to? Where will you go to find out the truth?
The world is full of all kinds of ideas. The Bible is even used to promote widely divergent and sometimes contradictory doctrines. You have a choice—you can either choose to listen to the truth or you can listen to lies. We need to be aware that everything we hear is not true. Every interpretation of the Bible is not true.
How can we tell the difference between truth and error? Jesus says we need to evaluate teaching by what it produces, by its outcome or effect. This does not mean a utilitarian approach (if it “works”, then it must be true). This does not mean a popular approach (if it’s widely accepted, then it must be true). This does not mean a rational approach (if it makes sense, then it must be true). This does not mean an existential approach (if it satisfies me, then it must be true). This means that true teaching is going to lead us to produce the kind of righteousness that is described in the Bible: faith in Christ alone, dependence upon God, humility, love for others, moral behavior (biblically defined), and commitment to God’s eternal kingdom and righteousness. If any teaching is producing effects that contradict these values, then it is false teaching.
There are people (and teachers/preachers) who claim to act in the name of Jesus, and who actually prophesy, exorcise demons and perform miracles, but do not have a relationship with Jesus, do not know him, and do not have eternal life. So we must always carefully evaluate the message of anyone who claims to be teaching or acting on behalf of God.
The truth is out there. But so are all kinds of fakers, phonies and liars. You have a choice. Who will be your guides?
1 Copyright © 2004 by Lewis B. Bell III. This is the edited manuscript of Lesson 2 in the Kingdom Choices series delivered by Chip Bell at Fellowship Bible Church Arapaho in Dallas, TX on December 5, 2004. Anyone is at liberty to use this lesson for educational purposes only, with credit.
Related Topics: Introduction to Theology, Basics for Christians
3. Location. Location. Location.
Related MediaMatthew 7:24-291
Introduction
You know what they say are the three most important considerations in real estate:
Location. Location. Location.
That’s not just true in real estate. It’s also true about life.
Today we’re going to study a parable. It’s an illustration, a metaphor about real estate and about life. It’s a picture that Jesus painted about a choice that each of us has to make: what street do you want to live on?
Nobody likes to be told what to do. Given the choice, most of us would choose to be given a choice. We want selection. We like to leave our options open. We want to be able to decide things for ourselves. And fortunately for us, we have a choice.
Series: You Have a Choice!
God lets us decide certain things for ourselves. As we continue our study of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, we’ve come to the final section, where Jesus presents his followers with three important choices:
Where are you going? Who are your guides? and What will you change?
We’ve talked about the first choice, Where Are You Going?
We saw that we are presented with two paths in life. One is a broad path where the going is easy and the travelers are many. That path looks like the right one, but it leads to death. And then there is another path: narrow, twisted and torturous. Not many people find it, but that path leads to life. In fact, that is the only path that leads to life. Jesus says we get to choose which of those two paths we will take.
We also talked about the second choice, Who Are Your Guides?
Last week we saw that there are all kinds of voices out there claiming to tell us the truth: preachers, politicians, philosophers, books and movies.
Jesus says we need to be on the lookout for false teachers: people who claim to tell us the truth, but don’t. How do we know the difference? We compare what they say to the Bible. We evaluate their fruit: the long-term effect of their teaching. Not everyone who speaks in the name of Jesus tells the truth. Not everyone who names God knows God. A man’s relationship with God is demonstrated by what he does, not by what he says. So we must choose which teachers we will follow.
Today we come to our third choice: What Will You Change?
Jesus says that your life is like a house and you can choose to build your house on one of Two Foundations. You are free to make the choice. God gives you that freedom. But as you decide, there is something you should know about these two foundations. One of them works and the other one doesn’t. One of them is solid and dependable. The other is unreliable and sure to bring you disaster.
The path you choose determines whether or not you find the WAY.
The teacher you choose determines whether or not you find the TRUTH.
The foundation you choose determines whether or not you will find LIFE.
What kind of foundation have you chosen?
Let’s begin by picking up a verse that we looked at last week:
[21] "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
We saw that the person whom God accepts into heaven is not the one who says he has a relationship with him, but rather the one who really does have a relationship with him and demonstrates it by his or her actions. This verse is a contrast between talkers and doers.
But in verse 24, Jesus is making a contrast between hearers and doers. It’s about those who are listening to the truth that Jesus is teaching there on the mountain. He’s speaking to his audience. He’s speaking to us.
And he says that we all have a choice. We have all heard his words. The question is, now what? There are two ways to respond to the truth that you’ve heard through Jesus’ teaching. You have a choice. Are you going to do it, put it into practice? Or, are you going to settle for simply hearing it? In other words, now that you’ve heard the Sermon on the Mount, what will you change?
Doing the Truth
Jesus describes your choice by comparing your two options to two houses built on two different foundations. The first house represents those who are changed by the truth—those who do something about what they’ve heard. Jesus describes that kind of person in verse 24:
Matthew 7:24-29 [24] "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
Each of us builds the house of our lives through our actions, our words, and our attitudes. With each decision, we lay a new brick, nail a new board.
The word wise means “thoughtful”, “sensible”.
The key thing here in the building is the foundation. Here there is an emphasis not just on hearing, but on application, follow through—actually doing the truth, acting upon what you have heard, putting the truth into practice. Doing truth is what Jesus calls the foundation of rock.
Notice that Jesus focuses in on “these words of mine”, drawing a parallel between his words and “the will of my Father in heaven” in the previous verses. Jesus is claiming essentially that his words are God’s will.
When we hear God’s word, we have a choice. We can be content with being informed—or we can put it into practice. We can allow it to change our lives.
The huge difference is in the outcome. Jesus describes the results of this decision in his parable of the house:
[25] The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
The hurricane that Jesus is describing here is most likely a reference to the final judgment when we all stand before God. That will be the ultimate test of our character. But I think that when he says this, Jesus also has in mind the hurricane that each of us faces in simply living life.
When difficult times come, when our beliefs and our values and our choices are tested, the outcome will depend upon whether or not we applied God’s word to our lives. The rain, the flooding streams, and the strong winds all represent the hurricane of life. Life is messy.
It throws us some pretty challenging problems, some very severe disappointments, an onslaught of stressful trials. Many of you are going through that dark side of life right now. You’re in the middle of the hurricane force winds. Life is taxing every ounce of energy and faith and hope that you have. You may be having days when you’re not sure you’re going to make it.
What Jesus is saying here is that your ability to weather the storm of life depends entirely upon one thing: your foundation. Have you put God’s word into practice? Are you doing what you’ve been taught? If you have, then you will be able to stand against the onslaught. You will survive the hurricane, because you have a solid foundation to stand on. You have allowed God’s word to shape your beliefs, your values and your choices.
This parable comes in two parts and here’s the first part:
Doing the Truth |
||
The Builder |
wise |
|
The Foundation |
rock |
|
The Hurricane |
rain flood winds | |
The Result |
did not fall |
Jesus says that doing the truth will protect you from the storms of life.
The person who recognizes that and builds his life around putting God’s word into practice is a wise, thoughtful builder. He has chosen a sturdy, rock-solid foundation. So when the hurricane of life blows cold and hard against him, he will not fall. He will not crumble.
Example: Noah obeyed God and was protected.
Hearing the Truth
There’s a second part to this parable. Beginning in verse 26, Jesus describes a second house—one which represents those who hear the truth but are not changed by it. They have chosen a different foundation for the building of their life.
[26] But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.
Here again the builder assembles the house of his life through his actions, his words, and his attitudes. With each decision, he lays a new brick, nails a new board. But this time the builder is foolish. He chooses a foundation that is shifting, unstable, and undependable.
Notice something very important here. The foolish builder Jesus is describing is not someone who has no idea what God’s word says.
Jesus isn’t contrasting those who go to church with those who don’t.
He isn’t talking about those who read the Bible as opposed to those who don’t. Both the wise builder and the foolish builder are described as people who “hear these words of mine.” Both of them hear the truth. Both of them know the truth. The difference between these two builders is that one of them acts on the truth and the other one doesn’t. One of them practices the truth and the other one doesn’t. One of them is changed by the truth and the other one is simply well informed and educated about the truth.
Hearing the truth but not doing it is what Jesus calls a foundation of sand.
When we hear God’s word, we have a choice. We can be content with being well-informed—or we can put it into practice. We can allow it to change our lives.
Once again, the huge difference is in the outcome. Jesus describes the results of complacency about God’s words:
[27] The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."
When difficult times come, when our beliefs and our values and our choices are tested, the outcome will depend upon whether or not we applied God’s word to our lives. At that point it doesn’t really matter whether or not you have heard God’s word. The only thing that matters is whether or not you have done anything about it.
Your ability to weather the storm of life depends entirely upon your foundation. Have you put God’s word into practice? Are you doing what you’ve been taught? If you have not, then you will not be able to stand against the onslaught of life. The hurricane will overcome you because you have no solid foundation on which to stand.
So here’s the second part of the parable.
Doing the Truth |
Hearing the Truth | |
The Builder |
wise |
foolish |
The Foundation |
rock |
sand |
The Hurricane |
rain flood winds | |
The Result |
did not fall |
fell with great crash |
Simply hearing the truth doesn’t matter. Hearing alone does nothing to protect you from the storms of life. The person who builds his life without practicing God’s word is a foolish builder. It doesn’t matter how well he knows God’s word, how much he’s studied or read. It doesn’t matter how many years he’s gone to church. He has chosen a foundation that will fail. So when the hurricane of life blows cold and hard against him, his house will fall. And his destruction will be great.
God tells us the truth for a reason: He loves us. He wants us to have the very best life we can, abundant and full of meaning. He wants us to live forever in the wonderful place he’s created for us, where there is no deceit, no treachery, no unkindness. And so he tells us how we can do that. He tells us the truth.
Now, here’s our reaction: why is God trying to ruin all our fun? Why does he limit us and keep us from enjoying all these attractive pleasures that we see all around us. Why has he put so many things “off limits”—things that look good, wise, harmless, entertaining, exciting, cool and fun?
You know what the truth is? The truth is that God loves us so much that he tells us the difference between what is good for us and what will destroy us. The things that will destroy us, ruin our relationships, damage our health, steal our joy, and devastate our sense of fulfillment—those things God calls “sin”, and he tells us to stay away from it because sin will kill us. The wages of sin is death.
That is exactly what this verse is talking about here. When we hear the truth and choose to live by it, that truth protects us from sin’s destruction. But so often we hear the truth and choose to leave it at that, perhaps because we don’t trust it, or because we have some other option that we like better. But if we choose to simply hear the truth without following it, then we will be destroyed by the devastating effects of sin. Sin is a poison. It always kills. That’s why God wants us to stay away from it. Sin will tear down your house and it will fall with a great crash.
Please don’t let that happen.
Let’s get real specific. I’m not here to pretend that I’m any better than anyone else. This isn’t a contest. But you know already know what you’re tolerating in your life that God calls sin. And it’s important that you’re honest with yourself about whatever sin is in your life.
Are you being less than honest in your business or in your words?
Are you sleeping with someone you’re not married to?
Are you selfishly collecting things for yourself instead of being generous?
Are you holding a grudge, refusing to forgive the one who wronged you?
Do you gossip, condemn, or harshly criticize other people?
I could go on, but you know what? So could you. You know what it is in your life, and right now God’s Spirit is reminding you that it is sin.
You have heard the words of Jesus. Are you going to do anything about it? You have a choice. Will the truth make a difference in your life?
Will Truth Make a Difference in Your Life?
There’s another verse in James where he reminds us of this same idea:
James 1:22, 25 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. …[25] The man who …continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does.
We church going folk get really good at hearing the truth. We listen to sermons. We read books. We go to Bible studies and small groups.
Some of us even go to seminary.
But what really matters is whether or not that truth is making a difference in your life. That is the choice you have to make. That is what determines whether or not you experience God’s blessing and protection.
------------------------------
With that astounding thought, the Sermon on the Mount ends.
And then Matthew records the reaction to what Jesus had taught:
[28] When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, [29] because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
The thing that amazed the crowds was that Jesus taught with authority.
The teachers in his day, called rabbis, would usually teach by citing a long list of previous rabbis who had answered a particular question or interpreted a certain passage. But Jesus spoke as one who had the authority on his own to speak directly about the kingdom, about the meaning of the law, about the future, about God’s requirements, and about how we ought to act and think. The way Jesus taught them left them amazed. They were probably amazed both at his words and at the way he delivered them.
However, interestingly enough, this verse doesn’t say anything about the kind of response that the teaching of Jesus had in the lives of those who heard him that day. Being amazed doesn’t change anything. Perhaps some of the people in the crowd that heard Jesus actually did something with what they had heard. Unfortunately, probably most of them were simply amazed.
We’ve spent the last year studying the Sermon on the Mount. You’ve heard the words that Jesus intended for you. Personally, I’m amazed at what he’s said in these three crucial chapters of Matthew. I hope you’re amazed too. But the most important question is what’s next. When you go home, how are you going to leave? Informed? Amazed? Or changed?
What Will You Change?
You have a choice—you can either choose to embrace God’s word and put it into practice in your life, or you can hear it and then walk away unchallenged and unchanged. If you choose to apply God’s word, to shape your life according to its teachings, then you are forming a stable foundation for your life which will allow you to endure and survive the difficulties and challenges that you will face in this life. God wants to protect us from the great damage that sin can do in our lives. The reason he says “no” to certain things is because they are dangerous, poisonous and destructive. He wants to spare us from tragedy. So he warns us and if we heed his instructions, then we will be protected. On the other hand, if you hear God’s word and then you choose not to act upon it, not to shape your life according to its teachings, then you are unprotected from the destruction of sin and the dangers of a fallen world.
It does no good to hear God’s word if you don’t do anything about it.
So, you’ve heard God’s Word. You’ve heard the words of Jesus that he taught his followers that day on the mountain. You’ve heard. The question is, “What are you going to do about it? What will you change?”
1 Copyright © 2004 by Lewis B. Bell III. This is the edited manuscript of Lesson 3 in the Kingdom Choices series delivered by Chip Bell at Fellowship Bible Church Arapaho in Dallas, TX on December 12, 2004. Anyone is at liberty to use this lesson for educational purposes only, with credit.
Related Topics: Basics for Christians
1. Good Enough? (Matthew 5:17-20)
Related MediaMatthew 5:17-20
March 7, 20041
Introduction
Title: Good Enough?
You’ve probably heard this question before: If you were to die tonight and stand before God and he said to you, “Why should I let you into heaven?” What would you say to him?
When I ask people that question, a large part of the time the answer I hear back is, “I would tell him that I think I’ve lived a pretty good life. Hopefully the good I’ve done will outweigh whatever bad I’ve done.”
Maybe some of you feel the same way. Here’s the problem: Just how good is good enough? How good do you need to be to get into heaven?
What exactly is the cut off point?
It is not just a question that we ask today. It was also a question that people in Jesus’ day were very interested in. Knowing that, he answered it very clearly. Today, we’re going to look at his answer.
The Jesus Curriculum
We’re continuing our study of the Sermon on the Mount, a lesson that Jesus taught to his followers. It’s a kind of handbook for the kingdom of God. Last month, we studied the character of God’s kingdom and the character of the kingdom’s citizens.
The Kingdom Code
Today we come to the beginning of a new section: The Kingdom Code.
If you remember where we left off, Jesus has just said that his followers should let the world see their goodness and that will have a profound effect on the people of the world. In this next section, Jesus goes on to describe what goodness looks like. Exactly what did Jesus mean? What kind of goodness was he looking for? And exactly how good was good enough?
The code is still in place.
Jesus begins by saying that he’s not starting all over from a blank slate.
Matthew 5:17-20 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
“Law and Prophets” was typical way of referring to the Scriptures, what we call “The Old Testament”.
Jesus is trying to head off any misunderstanding.
Someone might think that if the spiritually bankrupt belong to the kingdom of God, then Jesus must be saying that it doesn’t matter if you’re good—that it doesn’t matter if you obey the law.
But Jesus is saying, “I am not doing away with it, I am fulfilling it.”
It means that the OT points to him and by his life, his teachings, his death, his resurrection, and his return he completes the OT—he makes it happen, he brings it into reality. Jesus is not setting it aside and starting over with something different. He’s finishing the incomplete masterpiece that was begun in the Old Testament.
Several things in the Old Testament are radically changed by the coming of Jesus Christ. In the completed masterpiece, there are temporary measures that are no longer needed, like sacrifices. But that is like removing the scaffolding. It is far different than erasing the masterpiece.
[18] I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter,
The smallest Hebrew letter is yod.
not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
The least stroke is probably talking about the small differences between some Hebrew letters. he, hait, tov; vav, zion, dalet, resh
Basically, he’s using two expressions to say that no part of the Old Testament, no matter how small, no part can be set aside without being fulfilled, as it is being fulfilled right now in the life and teachings of Christ.
Since that is true, it is important that we keep to the code.
The code is to be practiced and taught.
[19] Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven,
Better translation for “breaks” is “relaxes”.
but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
The one who is really fulfilling his role as a citizen of God’s kingdom is one who follows God’s commands and teaches others to do so too. They will be recognized as the great ones in the kingdom.
The code requires perfection.
[20] For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law,
The Pharisees were theological conservatives. They believed God. They believed his word. They wanted to live lives that demonstrated their devotion to God. So they were very careful about their behavior. They went to great extremes to make sure they were not disobeying God’s law. To the people of the day, there was no one more righteous than the Pharisees. But Jesus says, “If you aren’t better than them—the most righteous people you know—then
you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
In essence what that means is that no one is good enough to enter the kingdom of heaven. How good is good enough? Perfect. 100%. Better than you are. More righteousness than you have. Even the most righteous people are not qualified to enter the kingdom.
If you’re thinking that when you’re standing at the entrance to heaven, you’ll be hoping that you’ve been good enough to get in, then Jesus says here in these verses that you’re in for a big disappointment. No matter how good you are, it’s not good enough. That leaves us all in a tough spot. It means that no one is qualified to enter God’s kingdom.
So…where does that leave us?
After reading these verses,
I realize that I need…
It means that we need something. These verses tell us four things that we need when it comes to being good.
…righteousness
I’m not righteous enough to enter the kingdom. Correct.
You need someone else’s righteousness.
Romans 3:20-22 No one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law. … But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.
This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
When we put our trust in Jesus, he gives us his righteousness. In God’s eyes, he makes us completely righteous.
Romans 8:3-4 What the law was powerless to do …God did by sending his own Son …to be a sin offering …in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us.
The law has not been abolished. It’s still there and it still reveals God’s will. But through Jesus, I have met all its requirements.
There’s a second thing from these verses that we know we need.
…the Old Testament
2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
This is speaking of the Old Testament. It is still God’s guide for us. It is still a revelation of his righteous character.
A third thing Jesus says that we need.
…to do right
We don’t need to do the right thing in order to win God’s love and acceptance. We already have that. God’s love and acceptance are based not on what we do, but on what Jesus did for us.
We don’t need to do the right thing in order to look good to others. It doesn’t matter what other people think of us.
There are three good reasons why we need to do the right thing.
1st, the best reason to do the right thing is because it is good for us.
We often think of sin as a restriction from something good. “Keep away from that!” But sin is not a candy; it’s a poison. The reason God tells us to keep away is because it will kill us. So doing right is good for us.
Second, doing right is what we were made for. Good is what we were meant to be. He gave us righteousness (that means he forgave us and declared us righteous) so that his righteousness would change who we are, effecting every area of our lives. Christ saved us so we could become like him, not just in right behavior, but also in right thinking and believing.
Third, and perhaps most important, when we do right, we are preparing a gift to bring pleasure to the most important person in our life, Jesus. If you have been forgiven and you understand what Jesus has done for you, how can you not love him and want to show him that love? We often show love to people by giving them gifts. Do you know how we show our love for God?
1 John 5:3 This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,
2 Corinthians 5:9-10 So we make it our goal to please him, … [10] For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
Reading this verse, it’s easy to think of this judgment as a trial. We immediately feel guilty (like getting called into the principal’s office).
But that’s not what this judgment seat of Christ is like. Think of it instead as Dad’s birthday party. The family’s all sitting around. Now it’s time to open the presents. Everyone’s a little curious to see what each person got Dad for his birthday. As the presents are opened, they reveal each person’s creativity, thoughtfulness and affection for Dad.
One day we are going to stand before God at a celebration in his honor. By the way we live our lives we are preparing a gift for him, the one who created us, forgave us, rescued us, cared for us and brought us back to life forever. On that day, the gifts will be opened and the contents revealed. What will you be giving the King at his celebration?
When I was a much younger man, I had a best friend (let’s call him “David”). Both raised in Christian homes. Both committed to follow Jesus. David and I were both dating and we told each other everything. Both of us occasionally pushed the limits of “how far can you go?”, but we were trying to “save ourselves” for marriage.
One day, David and his girlfriend “went all the way”. At the time it seemed all right, since, after all, they were planning to get married soon. And so they decided to have sex “on credit”. (the lay-away plan)
As you probably guessed, shortly after, they broke up. David was sick, physically sick. Not just because it hurt to break up, but because he had spent something precious that he could never again recapture. A few years later, David met another woman and when they married, I know that David’s greatest regret was that he couldn’t offer his wife the wedding present that he really wanted to be able to give her: his virginity.
Please don’t misunderstand. That didn’t diminish David’s love for his wife or his commitment to their marriage. And she still loved him deeply—whether he was a virgin or not. But because of the mistakes he had made, David was unable to offer her the one-of-a-kind, unique, specific gift that would best communicate his singular devotion to her. It wasn’t until his wedding day that he realized the value of what he had left behind.
I believe that is the situation with our gift for Jesus. Only while we are here on earth do we have the opportunity to prepare our gift for him—a gift designed to bring him pleasure—our obedience.
(I know right now, heaven seems a long way off. Maybe you don’t really feel like preparing a gift for Jesus—you’d rather please yourself. I know. I often feel that way.)
But when we all stand before him on that day, I think we will suddenly realize fully the extent of what Jesus has done for us. On that day, we’ll finally get it. And we will want to be able to give Jesus everything. We’ll want to show him our love, our complete devotion and allegiance. But at that point, all the shopping days will be over. Whatever gift we have prepared is the only one we will have to present.
On that day, when all the gifts are opened, we might want to give Jesus more, but we will only be able to honor him with what we have already done with our lives here on earth. That is why it is so important to do what is right. Because of God’s grace, our relationship with him will never be threatened, but at his celebration, we will want to please him with the way we have faithfully followed him.
This verse also gives us another reason to do right. At that same celebration to honor Jesus, after we have honored him by opening our presents, the Bible says that we will be rewarded for what we have done. What does that reward look like? That’s for another day.
But let’s go back to our list. After reading these verses, I realize that I need…
…to be genuine
Jesus said, “Your righteousness must be greater than that of the Pharisees. Although Pharisees were on very good behavior, Jesus criticized the Pharisees and scribes for being hypocrites.
Matthew 23:25 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
Play acting vs. sincerity.
Academy Award for best performance as a righteous person
External performance vs. Internal reality.
This is followed by six specific examples or applications.
What does it look like to be genuine in our obedience?
We’ll leave that for next week.
1 Copyright 2004 by Lewis B. Bell III. This is the edited manuscript of Lesson 1 in the The Kingdom Code series delivered by Chip Bell at Fellowship Bible Church Arapaho in Dallas, TX on March 7, 2004. Anyone is at liberty to use this lesson for educational purposes only, with credit.
2. If Looks Could Kill (Matthew 5:21-26)
Related MediaMatthew 5:21-26
March 14, 20041
Introduction
Title: If Looks Could Kill
Watching Perry Mason with Nana :”I’m going to kill him!” Don’t ever say that! That’s good advice. I try to take it to heart. Whenever I feel like killing someone, I try to remember not to say so.
Law and Order fan. “He was a horrible man. I’m glad he’s dead. I’d like to congratulate the guy who killed him. But I didn’t do it!”
They willingly tell the police because it’s not against the law to hate someone—it’s just against the law to kill them.
That’s the way it works in America.
But you know what? In God’s Kingdom that’s not the way it works.
In God’s Kingdom, it’s not only against the law to murder. It’s also against the law just to stay angry with someone. That’s the kind of radical idea that Jesus gave his followers.
The Jesus Curriculum
Today we’re continuing our study of the Sermon on the Mount, one of the lessons Jesus taught his followers. It’s a kind of handbook for the kingdom of God. .
The Kingdom Code
Last week we began a new section called: The Kingdom Code.
In it, Jesus tells his followers that being forgiven doesn’t mean we can live a life of lawlessness. In fact, as the King of the Kingdom, Jesus heightens the requirements of the law. He tells us what the law really means: not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law, the law’s intent.
We finished last week with Jesus’ statement that “your righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees”, the most carefully righteous people of his day. I’m sure his followers then wondered how that could be possible that they could be even more righteous than the Pharisees.
But what Jesus meant was that although the Pharisees were very concerned with obeying the external requirements of the code, they followed it in a very legalistic, wooden, joyless way. Jesus called them “actors”. They cared very little about whether they were doing what God wanted. They only cared that they did exactly what God told them to do. In fact, they had even added a few extra rules (and some of them were actually the opposite of what God wanted).
And so, Jesus tells his disciples that the true meaning of the law, the Kingdom Code, is to honor God not just with your actions, but also with your thoughts, your motives and your attitudes. The Kingdom Code is deeper and more personal than the law of any country. It delves into the innermost parts of a man that no other man can judge and only God can know.
What follows are six comparisons between external performance of the law and internal obedience to the law. Jesus deals with anger, lust, divorce, lying, revenge, and hatred. In each case, he calls us, his followers, to commit ourselves not just to obeying the external requirements of the law, but also to allowing the Kingdom Code to govern our thoughts, our motives and our attitudes.
Today we begin with the first of these six contrasts as Jesus teaches us about anger.
Unresolved Anger is Sin
You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, "Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment."
The first part is OT (long ago), the second part was what the rabbis taught. Judgment here is the death penalty.
[22] But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.
Anger (internal heart!) is also sin. It also brings God’s judgment.
Cf. difficulty of prosecuting a “hate” crime. God knows heart.
There are a couple of misunderstandings about this verse:
It is NOT saying that anger is the same as murder or just as bad as murder.
(Just for the record, I would much rather you were angry with me than…)
It is NOT saying that anger itself is sin. From other passages, we know that Jesus himself was sometimes angry and that we can be angry without sinning. (We’ll see that in a minute.)
Anger is initially a response, not a choice. We probably respond with anger so often because we’re fallen—so in that sense even that initial anger is sinful. But it’s not a sin in the sense of a choice I make to disobey God. When it first strikes, I think anger is more of a temptation than a sin. It’s what we choose to do with anger and what we choose to do because of anger that makes it sinful. As we’ll see from later verses, it’s unresolved anger that is sinful.
One of the main reasons is because it leads to sinful action. Jesus continues:
Again, anyone who says to his brother, "Raca," is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, "You fool!" will be in danger of the fire of hell.
Raca and fool are insults. (Raca sounds like spitting and means “empty head”.) Fool is Greek “moron”. When we’re angry, we really want to say something nasty to the people who make us angry. Jesus says, that’s sin.
Gehenna. Trash heap where they dumped the bodies of criminals. Always burning. Came to symbolize hell. He doesn’t mean that if you call someone a fool that you’re going to hell. He means that is a sin and sin deserves hell. If Jesus hadn’t paid for your sin, that’s what you would deserve—not just for murder, but even for speaking insults.
God takes it seriously. Why? In our anger, we lose sight of the person that God loves.
Notice the structure in this verse:
You have heard… |
anyone who murders |
But I tell you… |
anyone who is angry. |
Again… |
anyone who says, “Raca” |
But… |
anyone who says, “Fool” |
Two sets: You heard x, but I say y. He extends the culpability from action to emotion. He extends the judgment from human to divine.
Before we move on, let’s examine what else the NT says about anger:
2 Corinthians 12:20 For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be.
I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.
Ephesians 4:26-27 In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
Ephesians 4:31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.
Colossians 3:8 But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.
1 Timothy 2:8 I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing.
James 1:19-20 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
Reconciliation is Important
[23] Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you,
[24] leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.
Reconciliation: “change thoroughly”
This verse shows the importance of reconciliation. It’s important enough to interrupt worshipping God (maybe because unresolved conflict does interfere with our ability to worship God.)
Notice here the initiative is on the one who has sinned against someone else. The guilty party should take initiative to resolve the conflict with his brother. (This is interesting because it’s the other person who is probably angry.) Don’t even stop to worship when you know that your sin has caused a brother or sister to be angry. Seek them out. Apologize. Ask for their forgiveness. Seek to reconcile your relationship.
The responsibility to seek reconciliation does not rest with only the offending party. Later in Matthew, Jesus gives instructions to the party that has been offended (and is probably angry).
Matthew 18:15-17 "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.
[16] But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, … [17] If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church…
Really, both parties are responsible to come together and patch things up. As far as possible, to be able to agree on what was done, what was wrong and for each side to take responsibility for whatever they contributed to the conflict.
This is usually the last thing we want to do. And it’s hard work. But it is very important. More important, says Jesus, than getting to the worship service on time. Not only is reconciliation important, it’s also urgent.
Reconciliation is Urgent
In this last section, Jesus gives us a mini-parable to teach us that the business of reconciliation is urgent.
[25] Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way,
or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison.
[26] I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.
Surely this extends beyond just the situation of two men going to court.
He’s using this example to illustrate a broader principle.
If you continue to hold anger in your heart or if you have sinned against a brother and not ever tried to patch things up, then you are asking for it. There are consequences for leaving these things unresolved. Reconciliation is urgent so that you can avoid those consequences.
If you are in sin against a brother, God will not send you to hell for it (that’s not what this means), but he will lovingly discipline you to capture your attention and bring you to repentance (Godward) and reconciliation (manward).
If you don’t “get it” the first time, then he brings a bigger stick. (Which of you wouldn’t push your kid with a stick to move them out of the path of on oncoming car?) So…be reconciled now before God goes and gets the big stick.
Some Practical Advice about Anger…
I’d like to close today with some practical advice about anger. These are not explicitly from the Bible. And I’m not a psychologist. (here comes the email) But here are some practical things I have learned about trying not to sin when I’m angry.
Anger is an alarm.
A warning light. Treat it as such. Find out what’s setting off the alarm.
Something is wrong—maybe in someone else’s actions
Injustice, a personal attack
Like all warning systems, you can have false alarms. You can be angry even if you haven’t been wronged. (Something amiss in me.)
assumptions, inconvenience,
Don’t let anger act.
Commit yourself to not allow anger to either act or speak.
Story about the burglar trap, shotgun at the front door.
You want an alarm with less dire consequences. Church alarm.
In anger we say things and do things that we wouldn’t say or do if we were sober. Don’t let anger control you. Exercise self control.
(fruit of God’s Spirit)
Wait. Breath deeply.
Most of the time, that means waiting. When I’m hot, that’s a bad time to try to deal with the problem. Anger passes away. So why not wait a little. Let your emotions calm down. Take a few deep breaths. Get some perspective. Let the emotional part of your anger dissipate so that you can think about both the situation and your response more objectively and rationally.
Story about the staff member. Turns out they acted appropriately.
Can you put it away?
I think that sometimes, things bother me that are best left ignored.
If you bring up every little thing that bothers you or makes you angry, then you will constantly have some conflict to resolve. And life is more than conflict resolution.
If you’re married, you have either discovered this principle, or you are constantly living in conflict. Opposites attract and that means that usually your husband or your wife is basically designed by God to drive you crazy. So rather than bring up every little thing that bothers you, I think that sometimes you can apply “automatic forgiveness” and just ignore it.
I put it in a big box called “grace” and then put it away in the closet where it won’t get in the way of our relationship.
I do this with Julie. I figure, “that’s the woman I married. That’s the way she is. I don’t like that, but I love her, just like that.” The reason I can say this and still live in my house is because I’m also going to tell you that Julie has to do that same thing with me. And just between us, I’m sure that she has to overlook my faults a lot more often than I have to overlook hers.
So when you find yourself angry, ask yourself, “Can I just overlook this?” If you can, put it in the grace box and put it away. Don’t let it tear down your relationship.
Still bothers you? Talk to them! Now.
Sometimes anger is too big to fit in the grace box. And sometimes, even though we fit it inside and put the box away, the lid keeps popping off and there’s our anger again, right in the middle of the living room floor.
What I’m talking about is that sometimes our efforts to overlook an offense and “let go” of anger—sometimes that doesn’t work well. If you find you’re still angry or angry again, then it probably means that it’s time to take action. No, I don’t mean kill the other person. I mean talk to them. Take the initiative and speak with them. And do it now. If the anger is popping back out, then you need to act now.
Be as calm as you can be. Don’t attack, just explain. Take responsibility for your own actions—anything that you did to contribute to the conflict. Take responsibility for your own beliefs and feelings. (Not, “You made me angry.”) Try saying something like “I believe that what you did was wrong.” Or, “I felt angry when you did that.”
Be willing to listen. You may have missed something. This may be just a huge misunderstanding. It’s good to be as open as possible to hearing the other person’s perspective.
Hopefully, as you approach this person with prayer and with a loving attitude, they will respond.
Forgiveness is for you.
There’s always a chance that they will not listen to you or will not respond in a good way. But whether they respond in repentance or whether they respond in stubbornly doing the same thing again, there is only one healthy thing you can do: forgive them.
A lot of times we think of forgiveness as what we are supposed to do when someone apologizes. But the truth is that forgiveness is a one-party transaction. Even if someone is blatantly and stubbornly sinning against you, the very best thing you can do about it is to forgive them.
Somehow we get it in our heads that if we withhold our forgiveness, then we’re really going to let them have it. We’re going to show them what real pain feels like! We won’t forgive them. That’ll teach them.
But in reality, when we do that, it doesn’t hurt the other person at all. We only hurt ourselves. The more we indulge our anger, the more it consumes us, distorts our perspective on all of life, ruins our other relationships, eats away at our health, and turns us into bitter old men and women.
Unresolved anger is a sin. And like all sins, it destroys us. The reason God tells us to stay away from sin is because he doesn’t want us to get hurt.
Sometimes you might feel so angry you could kill. Very often you can’t help that. But it’s what you do next that really matters. Because whenever you harbor anger in your heart, whenever you refuse to forgive or refuse to reconcile, the life that’s really in danger is yours.
1 Copyright 2004 by Lewis B. Bell III. This is the edited manuscript of Lesson 2 in the The Kingdom Code series delivered by Chip Bell at Fellowship Bible Church Arapaho in Dallas, TX on March 14, 2004. Anyone is at liberty to use this lesson for educational purposes only, with credit.
Related Topics: Spiritual Life
3. Flames of Desire (Matthew 5:27-30)
Related MediaMatthew 5:27-30
March 21, 20041
Introduction
The message today is rated PG. It includes a discussion of sexual issues. Parents may wish to take their younger children to Kids’ Church.
Title: Flames of Desire
It’s happened so many times that it’s almost clich. When they stood at the altar, he loved her—more than anything else in the world. They bought a home together and worked late into the night to fix it up. Together they created children and watched them grow. They supported each other through many challenging and difficult times—soul mates, lovers, partners.
But then one day, he has an affair with another woman. She, too, was “happily” married—a devoted wife and mother. She loves (or at least she used to love) her husband. Of course she still loves her children. But this is something different—something just for her. She deserves it.
It is not amazing that men and women get involved in sexual sin.
What is amazing is how much they are willing to pay for it.
Long-standing relationships of love and trust are shattered. Kids lose their parents and are scarred by sorrow and guilt. People surrender their careers, their reputations, their homes, their savings, their friends and their relationship with God—all in the pursuit of happiness—happiness that vanishes with an ever-diminishing half-life.
It’s particularly distressing when we see this done by a pastor or promi-nent Christian leader. We expect that somehow they should be made out of something better than the average person. But at the end of the day, too many of them demonstrate that all of them—just like the rest of us—have feet of clay. However, when they fall into sexual sin, the price often includes the destruction of churches, ministries and people’s faith.
What would make someone do that—risk so much to gain so little?
Three things.
First, you usually don’t realize how much sexual sin is going to cost.
It rarely comes with a visible price tag attached. The cost is hidden, and besides that, it’s pleasure purchased on credit, with unmentioned payments due for the rest of your life.
Second, sex is a powerful force. It compels people to voluntarily do things that they would never think themselves capable of doing under normal circumstances. The combination of sexual and emotional attraction is an undertow that captures people who are merely wading by the beach, sweeps them out to sea and does everything possible to drown them. Sex is powerful, but also deceptive, because those who are being swept out to sea are willing and excited about going on this adventure into deep water.
Third, sexual sin doesn’t begin with glaring and blatant transgressions.
It starts with something very small and innocent—something that looks so harmless, it’s easy to allow. It starts with a desire.
The Jesus Curriculum
Today we’re studying Matthew 5:27-30, a passage where Jesus talks about sexual sin and the desires that lead up to it. This passage is part of the Sermon on the Mount, or what we’re calling, “The Kingdom Handbook” because in it Jesus teaches his followers about life in God’s kingdom.
The Kingdom Code
This particular section of the handbook is about The Kingdom Code, the rules we ought to follow as citizens of the kingdom.
We don’t follow the rules to get into the kingdom—the only way to get in is by trusting in what Jesus has done for us. The reason we follow the rules is because we are already in the kingdom. Since we trust God to tell us the truth, when he says something is off limits, we believe that he’s got our best interests at heart and that he’s trying to spare us from the pain and destruction that sin would produce if we gave it the chance.
But as Jesus lays out the Kingdom Code, it becomes obvious that he is explaining not just the letter of the law, but also the spirit of the law, the law’s intent. Jesus says it’s not enough to avoid certain external sinful behaviors. We also need to honor God with our thoughts, our motives and our attitudes—the inner things only God can know about us.
Matthew 5 contains six comparisons between this “external performance” and the “internal obedience” that God desires. Jesus talks about anger, lust, divorce, lying, revenge, and hatred. In each case, he calls us, his followers, to commit ourselves not just to obeying the external requirements of the law, but also to allowing the Kingdom Code to govern our thoughts, our motives and our attitudes.
Last week we talked about anger. It’s not just the external behavior of murder that’s wrong. It’s also wrong to maintain unresolved anger toward another person. Today we’re going to talk about the second of these six contrasts as Jesus teaches us about lust. In God’s Kingdom, it’s not only against the law to cheat on your spouse. It’s also against the law just to entertain the desire to have an affair with someone else.
Unrestrained Desire is Sin
Matthew 5:27-30 "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.'
The OT law was clear: adultery was wrong. Sleeping with someone else’s spouse, but could refer to a broader spectrum of sexual sins.
[28] But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Jesus says adultery is not the only thing to avoid. Adultery is an external behavior. But Jesus goes for the internal thoughts and motives.
The key word in this sentence is “lustfully”. However, that’s actually not a very good translation of this Greek word. The English “lust” carries a decidedly negative and sexual connotation—both of which are missing in the Greek word, epiqumew. It simply means, “to desire something or to long for something” and it is strictly a neutral term. In other words, whether desire is good or bad depends entirely on what you are desiring. The Bible uses this same word to say that one who wants to be an elder “desires a noble task”. Paul “desires to depart” this life and be with Christ. Jesus “eagerly desired” to eat the Last Supper with his disciples. The prophets in the OT “longed to see” the Messiah and angels “long” to understand our salvation. When Jesus uses this word, it is usually positive. But here it is obvious that he is talking about a desire for a woman that God has placed “off limits”. To desire that woman, says Jesus, is wrong, just as adultery itself is wrong.
There are a few misunderstandings about this verse. So I’d like to take a some time to say what this verse does NOT mean.
First, this does NOT mean that desire is adultery or that desire is just as bad as adultery, i.e., as soon as you’ve desired, then you’ve already had adultery, so having the thought is the same as if you acted on the thought. It is NOT the same. Notice that it doesn’t say, “you’ve already had adultery with her”, but “you’ve already had adultery with her in your heart.” Desire for an inappropriate sexual relationship is emotional adultery, not physical adultery. What this is saying is that it is not only wrong to consummate an “off limits” relationship. It is also wrong to desire an “off limits” relationship. Both are wrong, but they are not the same.
Second, this does NOT mean that sexual desire itself is wrong. God created sex and He created us with strong sexual desires. He also gave us the perfect context to indulge those desires—the marriage relation-ship. Unfortunately, many churches have left people with the impression that sex is evil and that God is pretty upset that somehow people figured out how to do this. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. (In 1981, Pope John Paul II said that a man could violate this verse even with own wife by lusting after her. That is completely contrary to what the Bible says.) Sex is God’s invention. He came up with the idea. He made it attractive and pleasurable and fun. He wants his followers to enjoy the best sex on the planet and so he designed marriage as the perfect context for it.
But to use God’s gift outside the context of marriage is to violate the operating instructions in the owner’s manual. Sex wasn’t designed to work outside marriage. It won’t work outside marriage. Instead of bringing us the fulfillment that God created sex to produce, it will bring us temporary pleasure and then long-term destruction and heartache.
Proverbs 6:25-29, 32
Do not lust in your heart after her beauty
or let her captivate you with her eyes,
for the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread,
and the adulteress preys upon your very life.
Can a man scoop fire into his lap
without his clothes being burned?
Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched?
So is he who sleeps with another man's wife;
no one who touches her will go unpunished.
A man who commits adultery lacks judgment;
whoever does so destroys himself.
Have you ever put something together without reading the directions?
Look, here’s glue. Let’s squirt it on. Then you read the instructions: “Warning: do not put the glue on part C until you have first connected part A to part B.” By that time it’s too late. It’s ruined. It will never work the way it’s supposed to. That’s what happens when we use sex outside of the context of marriage. It messes things up. It destroys. That’s why God says it’s “off limits”. He loves us and wants us to have the best. He didn’t send us assembly instructions to keep us from having fun. He sent them so that we could get the maximum enjoyment out of his gift.
Third, I believe that this verse is NOT saying that merely to have a desire for an inappropriate relationship is wrong. I believe that to entertain or nurture that desire is wrong. Remember when we talked about anger last week. It isn’t wrong to be angry. It’s wrong to leave it unresolved. In the same way, I believe that it isn’t sin to be attracted to someone besides your spouse or even to desire a sexual relationship with that person. However, to hang on to that desire, to feed it or act upon it—that is wrong.
Like anger, desire is initially a response, not a choice. We probably have desires for inappropriate relationships so often because we’re fallen—so in that sense even that initial desire is sinful. But it’s not a sin in the sense of a choice I make to disobey God. When it first strikes, I think desire is more of a temptation than a sin. It’s what we choose to do with desire and what we choose to do because of desire that makes it sinful.
It’s unrestrained desire that is sinful. That is the point that Jesus is trying to make in this verse. It’s not only the external behavior of adultery that is wrong. It is also wrong to harbor and nourish a secret internal desire for an illicit relationship. Physical adultery is wrong. But so is emotional adultery or mental adultery or attitudinal adultery.
Purity is Important
That’s why purity is important—not only purity in actions, but also purity in thoughts. Jesus goes on in verses 29-30 to explain just how important it is.
[29] If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
Notice the parallel thought in the next verse:
10. [30] And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
These verses are not suggesting that we should fight sexual sin by literally plucking out our eyes and cutting off our hands. I’m confident that even if we had only left eyes and left hands, we would still be able to find a way to have inappropriate sexual relationships and inappropriate sexual desires.
What these two verses are saying is that sexual purity in both action and thought is very important. It’s so important, that it’s worth sacrificing some otherwise good things if they might lead us into sin.
Colossians 3:4-5 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. [5] Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-7 It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; [4] that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, [5] not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; [6] and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. [7] For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.
Off course. Titanic about to run into an iceberg.
Some Practical Advice
I’d like to close today with some practical advice about dealing with sexual. Some of these are not explicitly from the Bible, but are some practical things I have learned about trying not to let desire turn into sin.
1. Desire is an alarm.
Like a proximity alarm. Action needs to be taken to avoid a collision.
2. Recognize you are vulnerable.
3. Watch your input.
4. Dress thoughtfully.
5. Watch your circumstances.
6. Think consequences.
7. Satisfy each other in marriage.
Proverbs 5:15-20 Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. [16] Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? [17] Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. [18] May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. [19] A loving doe, a graceful deer-- may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love. [20] Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife?
8. Tell someone else.
9. Run away.
10. Rely on God’s Spirit.
Galatians 5:16 Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the [flesh].
1 Copyright 2004 by Lewis B. Bell III. This is the edited manuscript of Lesson 3 in the The Kingdom Code series delivered by Chip Bell at Fellowship Bible Church Arapaho in Dallas, TX on March 21, 2004. Anyone is at liberty to use this lesson for educational purposes only, with credit.
Related Topics: Christian Home, Love
4. Breaking Up is Hard...on You (Matthew 5:31-32; 19:3-9)
Related MediaMatthew 5:31-32; 19:3-9
March 28, 20041
Introduction
Today we’re going to talk about divorce, and I’d like to begin with a little experiment. In just a minute, I’d like you to raise your hand if any of the following are true:
- If you have ever been divorced
- If you are married to someone who’s been divorced
- If someone in your immediate family has been divorced:
your parents, brothers and sisters, children, grandchildren
If any of those is true for you, would you please raise your hand?
OK, take just a minute to look around the room. This is a group of people that knows something about divorce, about how it effects relationships, about the kind of deep pain and damage that can come from a marriage that doesn’t end well. This group knows that divorce doesn’t just impact a husband and wife—the consequences ripple throughout the entire family. Thanks for participating in the experiment.
If you raised your hand today, you don’t need to feel embarrassed. Half of all marriages end in divorce. As you can see by looking at the hands that were raised around you, there is hardly a family in this country that hasn’t at some time been touched by the tragedy of a divorce. So, even if you’re that rare person whose hand was not raised a minute ago, unfortunately chances are very high that sometime in your life you will join this group.
As divorce becomes more prevalent, there is probably a greater acceptance of divorce. In fact, for children growing up today, it’s becoming uncommon to live together with both your own mother and your own father.
But despite its popularity, divorce is incredibly destructive and hurtful. There have been numerous studies of the detrimental effect that divorce has on children and their sense of stability, confidence, and self-value. Divorce not only brings about profound personal emotional pain from rejection, but it often also leads to deep-seated anger, resentment, bitterness and sometimes even violence.
Besides all that, this group probably also knows something about the stigma and shame attached to divorce. People who have been divorced often feel very guilty—even if they didn’t want to divorce or do anything to bring it about.
Unfortunately, churches have not helped matters much. Not only is the divorce rate just as high among church attenders, but many churches have also served up generous helpings of guilt-inducing recriminations and rejection. As the church showcases the ideal of marriage as God intended it to be, people who have been divorced are often made to feel like second-class citizens. Some churches have taught very rigid, even unusual interpretations of the Bible that prevent anyone who has been divorced from remarriage. Sometimes very godly, competent, otherwise-qualified believers have been barred for life from ministry and church leadership positions because they have been divorced or even because they married someone who has been divorced. And all this has been done in the name of Jesus.
I wonder…just what does Jesus think about all this? What really are his views about divorce and how we should think about it? I’m so glad you asked!
The Jesus Curriculum
Today we’re studying Matthew 5:31-32 and a related passage in Matthew 19, where Jesus talks about his own views of divorce. This passage is part of the Sermon on the Mount, or what we’re calling, “The Kingdom Handbook” because in it Jesus teaches his followers about life in God’s kingdom.
The Kingdom Code
This particular section of the handbook is about The Kingdom Code, the rules we ought to follow as citizens of the kingdom. If you remember, we don’t follow the rules to get into the kingdom—the only way to get in is by trusting in what Jesus has done for us. The reason we follow the rules is because we are already in the kingdom and we trust God to tell us the truth. When he says something is off limits, we believe that he’s got our best interests at heart and that he’s trying to spare us from the pain and destruction that sin would produce if we gave it the chance.
But as Jesus lays out the Kingdom Code, it becomes obvious that he is explaining not just the letter of the law, but also the spirit of the law, the law’s intent. Jesus says it’s not enough to avoid certain external sinful behaviors. We also need to honor God with our thoughts, our motives and our attitudes—the inner things only God can know about us.
Matthew 5 contains six comparisons between this “external performance” and the “internal obedience” that God desires. Jesus talks about anger, sexual desire, divorce, lying, revenge, and hatred. In each case, he calls us, his followers, to commit ourselves not just to obeying the external requirements of the law, but also to allowing the Kingdom Code to govern our thoughts, our motives and our attitudes.
For example, we’ve already talked about anger. Jesus says it’s not just the external behavior of murder that’s wrong. It’s also wrong to maintain unresolved anger toward another person. And last week, we saw that Jesus taught that it’s not only against the law to cheat on your spouse. It’s also against the law just to entertain the desire to have an affair with someone else.
Today we’re going to talk about the third of these six contrasts as Jesus teaches us about divorce. Just as he did with the previous subjects, Jesus begins with what his followers already knew about divorce from the Old Testament: that God permitted it.
Divorce is Permitted
Matthew 5:31-32 [31] "It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.'
Deuteronomy 24:1-4 If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house
[And her second marriage also ends,] [4] then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again
But Not for Any Reason
[32] But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress,
and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.
External: divorce
Internal: motive, commitment
God’s Design for Our Marriages
Matthew 19:3-9 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"
[4] "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,'
[5] and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'?
[6] So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
-
Life-long Commitment
-
Faithfulness
-
Work out Your Difficulties
God’s Provision for Our Weaknesses
When Things Won’t Work
[7] "Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"
[8] Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.
1 Corinthians 7:10-11 A wife must not separate from her husband. [11] But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. …
If there is no sexual sin, but you just can’t stand to be married anyway, the Bible does permit you to divorce, but in that event, you should remain unmarried. Why? Because God is able to put any marriage back together again. To remarry is to close the door on reconciliation and in God’s eyes is adultery—unfaithfulness to the covenant you have made. If your ex remarries or has a sexual relationship, then the bond is broken, and you are likewise free to remarry.
Unfaithfulness
[9] I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."
Mark 10:12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery."
Release and Recovery
1 Corinthians 7:12-15 If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her.
[13] And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him.
… [15] But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances.
I’d like to close today with some practical advice about recovery from divorce.
1. Forgiveness from God
2. Forgiveness for Others
3. Freedom to Remarry
1 Copyright 2004 by Lewis B. Bell III. This is the edited manuscript of Lesson 4 in the The Kingdom Code series delivered by Chip Bell at Fellowship Bible Church Arapaho in Dallas, TX on March 28, 2004. Anyone is at liberty to use this lesson for educational purposes only, with credit.
Related Topics: Christian Home, Marriage
6. Sweet Revenge (Matthew 5:38-42, Romans 12:17-21)
Related MediaMatthew 5:38-42
Romans 12:17-21
July 25, 20041
Introduction
Around 120 A.D., a Roman satirist named Juvenal wrote these words:
Indeed, it's always a paltry, feeble, tiny mind that takes pleasure in revenge. You can deduce it without further evidence than this, that no one delights more in vengeance than a woman.
Ladies, how do you feel about that? Don’t you just want to kill the man that said that? I’ve got good news for you. He’s already been dead for almost 2000 years. You know, when I hear this, I just wonder what this guy’s wife must have been like!
The truth is that it’s not just women who are interested in revenge. We all are. It’s something that we find sweet and satisfying—to know that the other person got what was coming to them. We love to get even.
Jesus also has something to say about the subject of revenge, and unlike his contemporary, he meant this teaching for both men and women.
Back before the 40 Days of Purpose began, we were studying the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 5-7, also called The Sermon on the Mount. It’s part of what we’re calling “The Jesus Curriculum”, the things that Jesus wanted us his followers to know.
First Jesus talked about the character of the people who are in the kingdom. Then he talked about the code of the kingdom: the way Jesus wants his followers to be.
He tells us that our righteousness must be genuine—not just external actions, but internal attitudes. In Jesus’ day, (The Pharisees)
But Jesus wants both our external actions and our internal attitudes to match his character.
1a For example, everyone agrees that murder is wrong. That’s obvious. But murder is merely the external evidence of an internal attitude.
1b Jesus said that it is also wrong to harbor unresolved anger in your heart—whether or not it leads to murder.
2a Likewise, nearly everyone recognizes that adultery is wrong.
2b But Jesus says that it’s also wrong to nurture sexual desire in your heart for someone other than your spouse.
3a God permits divorce because when a marriage has failed, it’s wrong to just abandon your spouse and leave them unable to remarry.
3b But Jesus says that it’s wrong to capriciously divorce your spouse just because you’re tired of being married to him or her.
4a Lastly, we saw that it’s wrong to go back on your word.
4b But Jesus says that the important thing is to be a truthful person, inside and out.
Title: Sweet Revenge
As we return to this passage in Matthew 5:38, we find that the next few verses are about justice and revenge. God has given us some legitimate avenues for justice here on earth, but Jesus warns us that personal revenge is something completely different. Revenge may taste sweet, but it’s wrong.
As as John Milton wrote in Paradise Lost:
Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long back on itself recoils.
Our passage today is a very confusing one that has often been misunderstood in several different ways. It’s led to all kinds of sloppy thinking about what kind of a person Jesus was and what he taught.
This passage is also the source of four very well-known sayings that almost everyone has heard or used before, but not everyone understands:
An eye for an eye.
Turn the other cheek.
Go the second mile.
Give him the shirt off your back.
So let’s open our Bibles and take a look at what Jesus teaches about revenge in Matthew 5:38
[5:38] "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'
Anti = instead of (same word used of Jesus dying instead of us).2
A replacement.
This was meant to restrain revenge, to make sure that the punishment did not exceed the crime. There was room for grace and alternative punishments. But this kept people from going too far in their punishments.
When someone hurts us…
Our natural tendency is payback.
We want them to hurt like we were hurt. We talk about getting even, and settling the score. The idea is that because they hurt us we now owe them some hurt in return. And that’s one debt we’re only too glad to settle. In fact, usually it’s not enough to “get even”. We usually want to add just a little more. Like playing poker: I see your insult and I raise you a poke in the eye!
This policy, written into the OT, was actually designed to prevent personal vendettas from inflicting a harsher punishment than the criminal deserved. If somebody blinded someone, they shouldn’t be killed for it. They should be held accountable for only an eye. Many times these debts were paid with a cash settlement—whatever amount an eye or a tooth was worth. The Bible supports measured justice.
But even if we stay within the bounds of inflicting reciprocal pain, we’re still missing the point. Because our external conformity to the demands of justice is often masking an internal problem: we want revenge. And revenge is sin. So Jesus says,
[5:38] "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' [39] But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person.
When we are hurt, we want payback.
But Jesus says, “Don’t fight back.”
The word “resist” means “to oppose, set one’s self against”
Stand plus Anti. “To be hostile towards”
The idea is not so much about non-resistance as it is about not facing off.
This is not pacifism (a refusal to meet evil with violence or war).
There seems to be plenty of room in the Bible for self-defense.
But this is clearly not aggressive, either.
This verse is a specific warning not to take personal retribution.
Don’t escalate the situation by “getting even”.
Rather, de-escalate. Diffuse. Lower the stakes.
Pacify. Endure. Forgive.
This is not a natural response:
—Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet statesman, wrote in 1971
“We had no use for the policy of the Gospels: if someone slaps you, just turn the other cheek. We had shown that anyone who slapped us on our cheek would get his head kicked off.”
Jesus calls us to respond counter-intuitively. Instead of meeting evil with equal or greater force, he urges us to meet evil with a completely different force: with good. Instead of paying back in kind, we are called to pay back with kindness.
There’s a parallel passage in Romans 12 that explains how this works.
Romans 12:17-21 (NIV) Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.
Don’t do evil just because someone did evil to you.
They did the wrong thing. You do the right thing.
Doesn’t that sound like something you tell your kids?
The younger one hits the older one. So the older one hits them back.
Then the younger one complains to mom and dad.
“Mom, Jimmy hit me.”
Mom says, “Jimmy, did you hit your little sister?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would you do such a thing?”
“Because she hit me first.”
And you want so bad for them to get it.
“Look, you take care of you and I’ll take care of your little sister. Believe me, you’ve got your hands full taking care of you. You just concentrate on making sure that you’re doing the right thing and don’t worry about what your sister is doing. I’ll take care of her.”
That’s exactly what God is trying to say to us. Don’t get involved in the business of trying to get even—making sure everybody gets what they deserve. That’s God’s job and he’s really good at it. Instead, we’re supposed to try to get along as much as possible.
[18] If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
May not be possible, but we should do whatever we can on our side.
But if we do that, if no one stands up to the aggressor, if we don’t give him what he deserves, then he’s just going to keep on doing it! If he gets away with it this time, he’s just doing to do it to someone else. Where does that leave justice?
God has an answer for you:
[19] Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.
God will take care of justice. It may not be when we want it. It may not be how we want it. But He will make sure that justice is done.
This policy is not a lack of justice. It is a call not to take personal revenge in order to get justice. Leave justice and revenge to God.
Some of that justice we won’t see until we get to heaven. But some of that is going to happen here on earth. In fact, God has a special agent he uses for that very purpose. No, it’s not me…or you. It’s the French. That is, it’s the French government…and the American government and the South African government and the Iraqi government. The Bible says that God uses government to bring a measure of justice to the world. It’s not perfect justice and it’s not enough. But while we’re waiting for the perfect justice of the Kingdom, the governments of the world at least hold back evil and bring some modicum of justice to the world. They are God’s justice agents, God’s instruments.
Romans 13: 4 (NIV) [Government] is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
The sword = the power execution and waging war
A legitimate, biblical function of government is to punish those who do wrong. And when they do, they function as God’s agents to punish evil. That is part of how God administers justice. It’s not perfect. But one day, God’s going to fix all that, too, and there will be perfect justice. So in the meantime, we’re supposed to keep out of it and let God do his thing. We’ve got a different job to do. Paul goes on in Romans 12:
Do not take revenge… [20] On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."
[21] Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
We are to answer evil with good. The trap is to be overcome by evil, to be so hurt, so wounded that we too choose an evil path by personally trying to settle the score. But God says, try paying back evil with good. What happens is even more devastating to the person who hurt you.
Everybody understands tit for tat. That’s the way the world works. But they have a really hard time with paying back evil with good. It makes their conscience burn. It drives them to rethink their approach because it’s not producing what they expected. That’s the way to overcome evil. Not by fighting it. Not by punishing it. Not by stamping it out. But by smothering it with kindness and generosity until it can no longer breathe.
Let’s go back to our passage in Matthew 5. Starting in verse 39, Jesus gives us four examples of this principle of answering evil with kindness and generosity.
Physical assault
Unfair lawsuits
Compulsory service
Exploited generosity
Here’s the first one in verse 39:
[5:39] If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
In Jesus’ day, getting struck on the right cheek meant a slap across the face with the back of the hand. (Who wants to illustrate?)
It was a terrible insult (and still is today in the Middle East).
This verse doesn’t mean don’t defend yourself.
It doesn’t mean to ask for another hit.
Both Jesus and Paul were literally struck on the cheek and both of them appealed to their rights. But they also didn’t hit back.
And that’s the force of this verse. If you are struck, if you’re insulted, don’t fight back. Don’t retaliate. Don’t try to get even. Let it go. Forgive.
It would be better to receive a second blow on the other cheek than to stoop to the same level as the person who attacked you.
That’s what it means to turn the other cheek. Don’t try to get even.
In other words,
Be kind and generous even when…
Someone verbally or physically assaults your person
The good news is, you don’t have to wait for violence to put this principle into practice. Have you ever met someone at church or school or on the job and they just weren’t very nice to you? It wasn’t because of anything you did—or maybe it was—but they just weren’t very kind or friendly. How did you respond? I tell you what we all like to do. We like to say, “Well, fine. Two can play at that game. I’m just going to be not friendly right back.”
Turning the other cheek, though, means answering that snub with kindness and generosity—being friendly to them even though they were unfriendly to you. It’s not some masochistic desire to be snubbed again, but it’s showing your face as if there has been no offense, because you’ve already forgiven them and you’re leaving the issue of justice and fairness to God.
The second example is in verse 40:
[5:40] And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
The tunic was a shirt, the garment worn closest to the body. On top of that you wore a cloak which was almost like a blanket. In our day, you might sue someone’s pants off. But in Jesus’ day they didn’t wear pants. So Jewish law permitted a person to sue someone for their shirt.
The cloak was actually protected by law. It could not be taken away.
The lawsuit in this verse might be a legitimate case, but I think there is also an overtone in this passage that suggests that it might even be an unfair settlement. Once again, the idea is not that a Christian is some wimp, that if you get unjustly sued that you shouldn’t put on a defense or you should automatically give the plaintiff all he’s asking for and more. The idea is again that we shouldn’t try to get even. Don’t counter-sue to get them back and make them pay. Instead, be generous with what you own. Hold on to your possessions loosely. So loosely that you’re willing to give them up if the only way to hang onto them is to fight for them, stooping to the same level as the one who is cheating you.
In other words,
Be kind and generous even when…
Someone unjustly cheats you out of your property
If you’re in the wrong, make a generous settlement. And if you’re not in the wrong, put on a defense, but don’t try to get revenge. Don’t hold so tightly to what you own that it prevents you from making peace. In 1 Corinthians 6:7, Paul says, “The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?”
The third example is in verse 41:
[5:41] If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
In the Roman Empire, a soldier or government official could force someone to carry their luggage for them. However, Roman law said that a person could only be forced to do this service for one mile and then he was free to go.
I’m sure that no one liked this forced labor when it happened. They probably resented it just as much as we do when we’re forced into something. I can just see some slave saying, “Fine. I may have to carry his stuff, but you never know what might happen to it. It could get really dirty if I accidentally drop it in the mud. You just never know.”
But Jesus says, don’t resent it. Don’t try to get even. Instead be generous. Repay evil with good. Offer to go another mile. Give him more than he has the right to demand.
In other words,
Be kind and generous even when…
Someone forces you to do something against your will
Here’s a nice practical example. How many of you like paying taxes? Don’t you resent it? Don’t you wish you could find some way to make sure the government doesn’t get a dime? I wonder if Jesus would suggest that in addition to paying our taxes with gladness that we also pay the second dollar. The government supports all kinds of social programs that feed, house and educate the poor. We could resent having to pay for it or we could say, “You know, I can do better than that. I can volunteer to build a house or teach someone to read. I can support an organization that provides baby supplies for unwed mothers.”
If there’s something that you’re doing only because you have to do it, be careful that you don’t find subtle little ways of venting your resentment by getting revenge. Jesus says, do it gladly and then on top of that, be generous.
The final example is in verse 42:
[5:42] Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
This is another one of those verses that causes so much soul-searching and confusion. At face value, this seems to be saying that we should give everyone whatever they ask for. In fact, I’ll make it even more unappealing. I think that because of the context, it’s probably talking about people who are actually taking advantage of your generosity. What they deserve is nothing. But Jesus tells us to continue to be generous. Don’t try to punish them by cutting them off from help. Be kind. Be generous. Even if they mistreat you or manipulate you or lie to you.
In other words,
Be kind and generous even when…
Someone takes advantage of your generosity
Almost every week we have someone who’s never been to our church come by off the street looking for money. Many of them are liars. One Sunday morning this guy came by here looking for money to get his car fixed. He said needed an operation and the only place he could get it done was at the VA hospital in Houston because that’s where he was registered. If we could just give him enough to repair his transmission, he was going to drive there. His surgery was scheduled for tomorrow.
When I hear a story like that, my heart goes out to this poor guy. I imagine what it would be like to be in that situation and I think about everything that God has given me. And I want to do something to help him. Except for one thing.
I remembered the same guy driving the same car telling David Nicholson the exact same story on another Sunday morning about a year earlier. Dave gave him about $50. So I told him: “You know what? You were here a year ago and you told us that exact same story.” And that guy got angry and started shouting at me and telling me what a sorry church we were that we wouldn’t even help someone in need. Then he drove away. It’s amazing to me how many of the folks who ask us for money know this verse in Matthew, “Give to the one who asks you”. And they’re ready to quote it as soon as it becomes obvious that they’re not going to get what they asked for.
You know, there are a lot of things that bug me, but one thing that really hacks me off is when people take advantage of grace. And when someone does that, when they answer our generosity with insults and threats, when they demonstrate absolutely no gratitude for our kindness or the church’s money or my time, it makes me really angry. You know what I’d like to do? I’d like to insult them right back. I’d like to never waste another minute of my time with them. I’d like to make sure they never see another dime from us.
But Jesus says, “Don’t turn away.” Don’t try to get even. Don’t try to make sure they get what they deserve. Be kind and generous.
By the way, this verse doesn’t say, “Give people whatever they ask of you.” It says, “Give to the one who asks you.” There are many requests we cannot fulfill. There are many requests we should not fulfill. We should ask questions and we have to use discernment in handling requests for money. But there’s no reason that in the process we can’t be kind and generous, even when someone takes advantage of our generosity. You know what? That’s part of the Kingdom Code.
Conclusion
Jesus says, I know that justice is important to you. I know that it hurts when you’ve been wronged. But be careful. There’s a danger here. Never let your thirst for justice turn into a quest for revenge. Don’t get even. You’ve been attacked and cheated and forced and taken advantage of. But answer the evil with kindness and generosity. And then leave everything else to God.
1 Copyright 2004 by Lewis B. Bell III. This is the edited manuscript of Lesson 6 in the The Kingdom Code series delivered by Chip Bell at Fellowship Bible Church Arapaho in Dallas, TX on July 25, 2004. Anyone is at liberty to use this lesson for educational purposes only, with credit.
2 ajnqivsthmi1. be hostile toward; 2. resist, oppose, rebel, set one’s self against
ajnqivsthmi, to set against, to set up in opposition 2. to match with, compare II.—to stand against, especially in battle, to withstand, oppose. 2. absolute to make a stand.
ajnqivsthmi, set against, in battle, set up in opposition, weigh against, outweigh. 2. match with, compare. II. Passive with intransitive.—stand against, especially in battle, withstand. 2. of things, turn out unfavourably to one. 3. absolute, make a stand, resist, fight on.
Related Topics: Forgiveness
7. I Love Him...I Love Him NOT (Matthew 5:43-48)
Related MediaMatthew 5:43-48
August 1, 2004
Introduction
Quote: “If a Jew sees that a Gentile has fallen into the sea, let him by no means lift him out. Of course it is written, ‘Do not rise up against your neighbor’s life.’, but this man is not your neighbor.”1
That’s what the Jews in Jesus’ day thought about the others who lived in their world. That was one of the mottos of the Pharisees, those who considered themselves to be close to God and who were very religious about doing the right thing. It’s no wonder that the Romans described the Jews as people who hated the whole human race.2
It reminds me of another, more modern description. It reminds me of the way some people in our world describe us: evangelical Christians. Have you noticed that we have a reputation for hate? The things we sometimes say are called “hate speech”. Many of the ideals we hold are considered intolerant and therefore “hateful”. Some of the actions taken in the name of Christ are called “hate crimes”.
Unfortunately, Christianity has a checkered past when it comes to hate, because down through history, in the name of Jesus, people professing to be Christians have done things to other human beings that are clearly reprehensible. Our history doesn’t make it easy to defend Christianity as a loving faith. But the critics are not just complaining about history—they’re criticizing us for our actions and our attitudes today which they do not find so loving.
I heard an interview with Michael Moore just this week in which he coined a new word for conservatives expressing certain strongly anti-liberal views. He calls them “hatriots.” He didn’t specifically mention evangelical Christians, but I’m sure that a lot of evangelicals would find themselves in the group that he’s referring to.
Just like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, evangelicals consider themselves close to God and as a whole are very concerned about right and wrong. And just like the Jews of Jesus’ day, evangelicals are thought of by many in our world as people who hate the rest of the human race.
Does that bother you?
The Pharisees fell into a trap in which we might also easily find ourselves. Our common relationship with Christ draws us closer to each other. We are a band of brothers and sisters with a common faith, common values, a common purpose, and a common wonderful destiny after death. We have discovered, in the Bible, absolute truth from God. And there is a natural affection between people who share so many significant things in common.
But there is also a readily identifiable distinction between us and all the others who do not share these bonds. They are clearly different. They are outside the fellowship, outside our community, strangers to the band of brothers.
My brother in Christ, I clearly appreciate. I love him. But what about the other? What about the outsider?
Title: I Love Him. I Love Him Not.
The natural response is: my brother, I love him. The outsider, I love him not. That was the trap that captured the Pharisees and I fear that it is also the attitude that has ensnared much of the evangelical church today.
Not surprisingly, Jesus had something to say to the Pharisees of his day about this problem, and I think his words are particularly relevant to us today when God’s people have once again developed a reputation for hating other people.
Kingdom Code
Today, as we continue our study of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, we finish the section called “The Kingdom Code” in which Jesus calls his followers to rise to a higher level of obedience than the Pharisees, who were careful to do the right thing outwardly, but were not very careful about the sinful attitudes of their hearts. Jesus begins in Matthew 5:43 by describing life as the Pharisees saw it.
1. A Love or Hate Relationship
[43] "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'
The beginning of this phrase is a quote from the Old Testament (Lev. 19:18). But there is nothing in the law that told the Jews to hate their enemies. That is something that just came naturally and still comes naturally to us. Those that are close to us, those that are like us, they are the ones we love. But the opposition—those that are different and strange—our natural response is to hate them.
The word enemy means an unfriendly opponent.3 An enemy can be somebody who hates us and seeks to harm us or cause us trouble. An enemy can be someone who has wronged us. Or an enemy can just be somebody on the opposing side, an “unfriendly” in the sense that they are hostile to the values or beliefs that are important to us.
There are lots of areas where we can find enemies. And if we can’t find them, we can always make enemies. It’s easy. All we need are some strong differences. The meaning of enemy that most quickly comes to mind are enemy nations—those who oppose our values or those who infringe on our interests. Our latest enemy is terrorism which threatens our safety.
But we can also find enemies here at home. There are political enemies and religious enemies—those who do not value what we value or believe what we believe. Sometimes we identify individual enemies just by their nationality. Maybe you have an enemy in your business, an evil competitor. Perhaps you have a rival for another’s affections. And perhaps the word seems too strong, but we have all discovered personal enemies, people who have wronged us or hurt us.
People that hated us. And the natural thing to do is to hate them back.
Hate them for what they do or what they believe or what they value or where they came from or what they threaten to take away from us.
Who is Not Worthy of Your Love?
By human standards, there are some people who are just not worthy of our love. They don’t deserve it, and so they don’t get it. It’s either a love or hate relationship. I love him. I love him not. That’s the way it works.
But Jesus has a different approach. Instead of a love OR hate relationship, he demands
2. A Love for Hate Relationship
[44] But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
Whoever he is, the correct way to respond to your opponent is not to hate him, but to love him. That is not natural. It’s supernatural. It’s a response that is so foreign to us that the only way we’re going to follow this instruction is by asking for God to change us.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that Jesus tells us to pray for our enemies, even for those who persecute us? It’s prayer that often changes our hearts and moves us from the natural response to the supernatural response. I don’t have what it takes to love my enemies, but God does.
Who do You Love Who’s Not Worthy?
God’s standard is different from human standards. Instead of asking, “Who is not worthy of your love?” God asks, “Who do you love who’s not worthy?” An enemy does not deserve your love, but God says to love him anyway. It’s a love FOR hate relationship.
Just what does it mean to love your enemy? These days love often gets defined as just an emotion, a feeling. But love in the Bible goes well beyond how you feel about something. It is a decision, sometimes a decision to do something opposite to what you feel like doing.
For example, when your little child comes into your room at 3 o’clock in the morning and says, “Mommy, I threw up.” What do you do? You get out of bed and comfort him and clean him up and change his sheets and soothe him back to sleep. Is that what you FEEL like doing? No way. But you do it because you love him.
We understand that because it’s natural to love your own child. It’s not natural to love our enemy, but “love” is the same thing. It means having enough concern for another’s well being that you overcome your personal desires in order to meet their needs and help them feel loved.
I’d like you to listen to the words of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 which we often hear in the context of loving people who we want to love. Today, I’d like you to hear these words and think about how they apply to your enemies.
So pick one or two of your enemies: a political opponent, a competitor, someone whose values are antithetical to yours, or someone who’s done you wrong. Think about that person and listen to how Jesus would have you treat them.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. [5] It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Let’s pause right here, because I’d like this to sink in. Is this the way evangelical Christians treat their opponents? How about those who openly advocate homosexuality as a natural lifestyle? How about those who rally to promote a woman’s right to abort her baby? How about those who ridicule Christianity as a collection of fables that serves as a crutch for the weak-minded? How about someone who practices Wicca?
You know, it doesn’t just have to be about your Christian values. What about other things that are important to you? Is this the way you treat someone who burns your flag or someone who attacks your country?
[6] Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. [7] It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. [8] Love never fails.
WHY?
Why should we love them? If we’re going to pursue something so contrary to our nature and our desires, we ought to have a good reason for doing so. Jesus tells us in verse 45 why we need to love our enemies:
11. [45] that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.
There’s only one reason to love your enemies. You should do it because it’s just what your Dad would do. That’s just the way God treats them. When we love our enemies, we demonstrate that we are God’s children. We prove our relationship with him. Jesus gives two examples.
12. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good,
It doesn’t matter whether they are good men or evil men, God gives them His sunshine. Even if they don’t acknowledge it belongs to him! He gives them light. He gives them warmth. He makes their food grow.
13. and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Rain is not a negative event; it’s another positive gift. God waters the whole earth. He doesn’t just supply food for the righteous, but also for the unrighteous. God gives without distinction. He loves people indiscriminately. You don’t have to earn God’s love.
4. God’s Love is Based on Grace
God’s love is one sided. It’s non-reciprocal. You don’t have to do anything to earn God’s love, to deserve God’s love. You just get it.
John 3:16 says God loves everyone in the world, the good, the bad and the ugly. 1 John 2:2 says Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, even those who hate him, even those who do not believe in him.
1 Timothy 2:4 says God wants everyone to be saved. He wants everyone to know the truth.
God loves everyone and that’s why he wants us to love everyone.
God loves the people who hate him. And that’s why he wants us to love the people who hate him.
God loves the people who hate us. And that’s why he wants us to love the people who hate us.
God’s love is based on grace, but
5. Man’s Love is Based on Merit
Unlike God, human beings love on the basis of reciprocal relationships.
Our love is given in return for something else. In other words, I’ll love you because you’ve earned my love or because you’re entitled to my love. You love me. So I’ll love you back.
Jesus says, anyone can do that. But you can do better.
[46] If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
In Jesus’ day, a tax collector was a low-life, despised human being. For one thing, nobody likes to pay taxes. And these tax collectors were considered traitors: Jewish agents of the occupying Roman government. That also meant they spent time with Romans which made them “unclean”.
But in addition to all that, these tax collectors routinely overcharged people for their taxes and kept the margin for themselves. They were crooks! And yet however slimy these characters were, you know what? Maybe nobody else liked them, but they liked each other! There’s nothing special about loving someone who loves you. Even a low-life, traitorous, unclean, cheating thief can do that! But you can do better.
16. [47] And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
The word “pagan” here is literally “Gentile”. Most of the Gentiles did not recognize God. They had their own religious beliefs. And, of course, not knowing the true God didn’t keep them from being friendly with each other. So the question is, if they can do that without God, then what can you do with God? Since you know the true God, you can do better. You can be friendly with your friends and your enemies. You can love the way God loves.
That’s really the crux of the whole thing. Do you love indiscriminately, the way God loves? Do you love without distinction, the way God loves? Do you love based on grace, the way God does? The kind of people you love shows who you’re following. Jesus closes by saying,
6. Who’s Your Daddy?
17. [48] Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
This verse causes people a lot of headaches because taken just by itself, it sounds like Jesus is setting a standard we cannot possibly attain.
But it’s worth noting that this verse is related to the verses we’ve just been reading. The word perfect here means complete or thorough. 4
Jesus is talking about the way we ought to love. Loving only our friends and our family is an incomplete love that any human being can do. But loving your enemy—loving those that hate you and those that hate God—that kind of love is mature and fully developed. And that’s the kind of love that God has. So go the whole way in loving just as God does. Our love should be like God’s love. We should follow our Father’s example.
Conclusion
You know, evangelicals never will be clearly understood by the world. Sometimes even our love is interpreted as hate. For example no matter how kindly you speak the biblical truth that those without Christ will perish, many will still consider that to be “hate” speech.
But despite those misunderstandings, it is also worth considering whether there is any truth to the claim that evangelicals express “hate” to other people in the world. Is there anything to it? It is worth examining ourselves inside and out to make sure that we identify anything hateful in our actions or our attitudes: impatience, unkindness, envy, boasting, pride, rudeness, self-assertion, anger, resentment, and gloating. Are we protecting, trusting, hoping and persevering?
We comfort ourselves with the adage, “Hate the sin, but love the sinner.” It allows us to justify some feeling of outrage against sin and unrighteousness.
But when we express that outrage within earshot of the people we call “sinners”, I don’t believe that they can tell that we don’t hate them.
And I’m pretty sure that we’re not acting the way love would act.
I have a friend whose son, in a moment of uncontrolled rage, murdered his girlfriend. If that was your son—thrown in jail, awaiting trial and certain punishment—how would you feel? How would you treat him?
I think it’s clear that we’re all against murder here. But how would you feel about your son? How would you treat him? Would you stick a big sign in front of his face that says, “All murderers will burn forever in the fiery lake of sulfur. Rev 21:8”? Or would you weep with him? Would you stand by him and comfort him, pleading with God to be merciful to him and not give him what he deserves?
The evangelical church longs to reveal God’s justice
by hating those who oppose him.
But God longs for the church to reveal his love
for even those who oppose him.
You’re an evangelical. How do you treat the people in this world who hate God, who reject his truth and live by their own behavioral standards?
Do you love them?
Copyright 2004 by Lewis B. Bell III. This is the edited manuscript of Lesson 7 in the The Kingdom Code series delivered by Chip Bell at Fellowship Bible Church Arapaho in Dallas, TX on August 1, 2004. Anyone is at liberty to use this lesson for educational purposes only, with credit.
1 Paraphrase of Tristram, Eastern Customs in Bible Lands, quoted in Sanders, For Believers Only, p. 84.
2 Tacitus “They readily show compassion to their own countrymen, but they bear to all others the hatred of an enemy.”
3 BAGD: ejcqrov" hostile
1. passive hated
2. active hating, hostile, an enemy. the (personal) enemy.
TDNT: In the NT ejcqrov" is used for personal enemies in the various relationships of everyday life. More important … ejcqrov" can be used for the foes of Israel. …It is with this reference to enemies of God and His people that ejcqrov" is used in Mt. 5:43
LSJ: ejcqrov" is one who has been fivlo", but is alienated
Strong’s: ejcqrov" hateful (passively, odious, or actively, hostile); 32 occurrences; “enemy” 30x “foe” 2x.
1 hated, odious, hateful.
2 hostile, hating, and opposing another. 2a used of men as at enmity with God by their sin. 2a1 opposing (God) in the mind. 2a2 a man that is hostile. 2a3 a certain enemy. 2a4 the hostile one. 2a5 the devil who is the most bitter enemy of the divine government.
4 BAGD: tevleio", a, on having attained the end or purpose, complete, perfect.
1. something that is perfect, virtuous, the full measure of our knowledge, the full measure of the sins
2. someone who is
a. of age full-grown, mature, adult
b. initiated into the mystic rites, a technical term of the mystery religions
c. fully up to standard in a certain respect perfect, complete, expert
d. perfect, fully developed in a moral sense
e. God is termed tevleio"
Related Topics: Apologetics, Law, Cultural Issues
5. To Tell the Truth (Matthew 5:33-37; 23:16-22)
Related MediaIntroduction
If you think about it, it’s one of the first skills we learn all by ourselves, usually without the assistance of any parent or teacher. We don’t even need to have it modeled by someone else. We just have a natural talent for it, that blossoms automatically when we are really young. Just after we learn to talk, we learn to lie.
Title: To Tell the Truth
I was about 6 when I told the first lie I remember telling. (I’m quite sure that it wasn’t the first lie I told, because we all start much earlier than that.) But the first one I remember, I was playing with a friend in the yard in front of the house, when my Dad came home…
That made quite an impression on me. (I didn’t know Jesus could hit so hard!) Unfortunately, I’m not saying that I’ve always been completely honest, but for the rest of my life, I remembered that lesson.
In fact, that skill, which begins so early in our life, was never allowed to fully develop in me. In third grade I remember getting back a homework assignment the teacher had graded…
The Jesus Curriculum
Today we’re studying Matthew 5:33-37 and a related passage in Mat. 23, where Jesus talks about the importance of telling the truth. This passage is part of the Sermon on the Mount, what we’re calling, “The Kingdom Handbook” because in it Jesus teaches his followers about life in God’s kingdom.
The Kingdom Code
This particular section of the handbook is about The Kingdom Code, the rules we ought to follow as citizens of the kingdom. If you remember, we don’t follow the rules to get into the kingdom—the only way to get in is by trusting in what Jesus has done for us. The reason we follow the rules is because we are already in the kingdom and we trust God to tell us the truth. When he says something is off limits, we believe that he’s got our best interests at heart and that he’s trying to spare us from the pain and destruction that sin would produce if we gave it the chance.
But as Jesus lays out the Kingdom Code, it becomes obvious that he is explaining not just the letter of the law, but also the spirit of the law, the law’s intent. Jesus says it’s not enough to avoid certain external sinful behaviors. We also need to honor God with our thoughts, our motives and our attitudes—the inner things only God can know about us.
Matthew 5 contains six comparisons between this “external performance” and the “internal obedience” that God desires. Jesus talks about anger, sexual desire, divorce, lying, revenge, and hatred. In each case, he calls us, his followers, to commit ourselves not just to obeying the external requirements of the law, but also to allowing the Kingdom Code to govern our thoughts, our motives and our attitudes.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve talked about three of these comparisons. First, anger. Jesus says it’s not just the external behavior of murder that’s wrong. It’s also wrong to maintain unresolved anger toward another person. Next, we saw that Jesus taught that it’s not only against the law to cheat on your spouse. It’s also against the law just to entertain the desire to have an affair with someone else. Last week, we talked about divorce. Although the Bible allows divorce, God’s intention is that we remain faithful to our spouses even when things get difficult.
Today we’re going to talk about the fourth of these six contrasts as Jesus teaches us about truth. Just as he did with the previous subjects, Jesus begins with what his followers already knew about telling the truth from the Old Testament.
“Cross My Heart”
Matthew 5 [33] Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.'
An oath was a solemn promise someone made to indicate that they were telling the truth. The story of the Old Testament is full of examples—oaths are mentioned almost 200 times! This practice didn’t begin with the law. It already existed in Abraham’s day, over 500 years before Moses.
But the law picks us the practice and talks about the significance of making an oath.
Numbers 30:2 When a man makes a vow to the LORD or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said.
The OT teaches that a person following God, an honest person, will fulfill their promises. You will be able to rely on him doing what he said he would do.
But not everyone tells the truth. And more particularly, people tend to make what Mary Poppins calls “pie crust promises”—easily made and easily broken. Because of that we sometimes don’t believe people when they say they will do something.
But if they swear that they will do it, that usually means something more to us. “I will do it” vs. “I swear I will do it.” It seems more reliable, more believable. At least they seem to know that they are making a promise.
“Cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye.” Shake the secret handshake.
That’s the function of oaths. They are intended to demonstrate honesty.
In fact, when there were no witnesses to a crime, testimony under oath was to be accepted as true testimony (even though no one else could corroborate it).
Exodus 22:10-11 "If a man gives …[an] animal to his neighbor for safekeeping and it dies or is injured or is taken away while no one is looking, [11] the issue between them
will be settled by the taking of an oath before the LORD that the neighbor did not lay hands on the other person's property. The owner is to accept this, and no restitution is required.
When no human witness can validate our words, an oath involves an appeal to some supernatural witness:
Hebrews 6:16 Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument.
An oath is the promise someone makes when he swears. Today, right here in church, we’re going to talk about swearing and cursing.
Interestingly enough, swearing and cursing have come to mean, “using profane or vulgar language”.
But both swearing and cursing were originally meant to validate:
- the truth of a statement (like I didn’t take your cow), or
- the certainty of a promise (like the vow made to the Lord)
Swearing and cursing are two different methods of validation:
Swearing an oath does so by invoking a greater witness.
- “By God, I’m going to do it.”
- “As God is my witness.”
- “I swear on my mother’s grave.”
- “That’s the God’s honest truth.”
- “Do you promise to tell the truth, etc., so help you God?”
- Herod promised Salome whatever she wanted if she’d dance.
Cursing does so by invoking dire consequences.
May this happen to me (or to you) if this isn’t true or if I don’t do it.
- “Well, I’ll be damned.”
- “God help you if you’re lying to me.”
- “Cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye.”
- When Peter denies Jesus three times, the first time he denies it. The second time, he denies it with an oath. The third time, he calls down curses on himself and swears to them.
Both swearing and cursing are used in the Bible and used by God!
The important thing, from the perspective of the Old Testament, is that if you’re going to swear something is true, then it better be true. And if you swear you’re going to do something, then you better make sure you do it.
Leviticus 19:12 "'Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.
Often, God was called as a witness to an oath. And so he told the people that if you’re going to use him as a reference, then you better be serious about telling the truth.
In fact, this is what the third of the ten commandments is talking about:
Exodus 20:7 "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
The phrase translated in NIV “misuse” literally means, “to lift up without any purpose.” God said that if you use his name, there better be some meaning behind it. He doesn’t want to be party to our lies and deceptions.
But the intention of the OT was not that words under oath are the only words that are binding! The intention was that it is wrong to lie under oath, just as it is wrong to lie at any time.
“Crossed My Fingers”
Oaths were corrupted to allow for deception.
Unfortunately, whenever there’s room for a loophole, people usually find it. By the time we get to Jesus’ day, people had found a way to actually use these oaths in order to lie.
- Cultural background
My promise didn’t count because I crossed my fingers!
Matthew 23:16-22 "Woe to you, blind guides! You say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.'
[17] You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?
[18] You also say, 'If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.'
[19] You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
[20] Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. [21] And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it.
[22] And he who swears by heaven swears by God's throne and by the one who sits on it.
That’s why Jesus says in Matthew 5,
Matthew 5 [34] But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; [35] or by the earth, for it is his footstool;
or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. [36] And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black.
Does this absolutely forbid taking an oath? Quakers.
No. Jesus puts himself under an oath (Matthew 26:63-64). So does Paul. The basis of God’s promise being certain is because of his oath.
The point of the OT was to say that because we should fulfill our oaths because we should always be honest. The Pharisees interpreted it to mean that ONLY when you made an oath did you have to tell the truth, and even then, it only had to be a certain kind of oath. That is not at all what God meant.
“Won’t Cross the Line”
That’s why Jesus says,
Matthew 5 [37] Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
Trustworthiness depends on integrity.
James 5:12 Above all, my brothers, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your "Yes" be yes, and your "No," no, or you will be condemned.
1 Peter 3:10 For, "Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech.
Proverbs 12:22 The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful.
Proverbs 19:5 A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who pours out lies will not go free.
Psalms 5:6 You destroy those who tell lies.
Revelation 21:8 The cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.
Colossians 3:9-10 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices [10] and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
Ephesians 4: 25 each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.
Giving an oath matters,
Because not all words are true.
But if all your words are true,
Then giving an oath doesn’t matter.
1 Copyright © 2004 by Lewis B. Bell III. This is the edited manuscript of Lesson 5 in the The Kingdom Character series delivered by Chip Bell at Fellowship Bible Church Arapaho in Dallas, TX on April 4, 2004. Anyone is at liberty to use this lesson for educational purposes only, with credit.
Related Topics: Sanctification