God Wants Us to Understand the People Around Us

(from the Sermon on the Mount)

 
The Appearance of Righteousness
OK, let’s say that you are working for a business owner who is really demanding. I mean, he’s driving you crazy with his high expectations. He’s riding you every day and demanding that you perform at a level that’s nearly impossible. Well, one day you get a new supervisor, and he steps in under the owner and takes you aside. He whispers to you that he’ll go to the owner on your behalf and cover for you, even when you mess up and aren’t able to do everything that’s expected of you. Boy, that would surely be Good News, wouldn’t it? But then one day, this new supervisor comes to you and says that he wants to talk to you about his own expectations for your work performance and guess what… the new supervisor seems to have an even HIGHER list of expectations! I mean your heart sinks. Just when you think you were about to be freed from the burden of the owner, this new supervisor slaps you with even more impossible demands!!

Well that might be how some people would view the next part of the Sermon on the Mount that we are about to study. I mean, we know that God has laid out his Law in the Old Testament, and we also know that it’s incredible difficult to obey this law on a daily basis. We also know that Jesus promised to lift our burdens and provide the forgiveness we need when we mess up. That should be really good news. So when we get to the next part of the Sermon on the Mount, and see what appears to be an even more impossible set of standards, how are we to understand them? Has Jesus just taken away the good news of forgiveness and salvation by adding back an even more impossible set of regulations? First, let’s check out the message from Jesus:

 
Matthew 5:21-48
"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. 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. "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. "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. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 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. 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. "It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.' 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. "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.' But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

 
An Even More Impossible Standard
Now let’s take a minute to review what Jesus has just said, because it sure does seem like he is adding a bunch of rules and regulations to the Old Testament law that his listeners were familiar with. I mean, every time he begins a new topic, he starts out by saying, in essence, ‘Hey you might have heard the teachers of the law tell you this, but I say it’s even more than this!’ At first blush it might even seem that Jesus is more legalistic than the Pharisees! So, let’s make a list of the Laws that had been established in the Old Testament and compare them to the words of Jesus in the Sermon:

I’m looking at this list and I’m thinking, hey, I have a hard enough time obeying the left side of the ledger, don’t even ask me to try to obey the right side!! It’s about impossible! But while it is true that the right side reflects the heart of God on these issues, there is another truth about these statements of Jesus. Is He just calling us to something HIGHER, or is there another truth we need to know? Let’s start by looking at his declarations, one by one. 

  
Don’t Even Call Him a Bad Name!
How many times do we do this every day, at least in our minds? The guy in front of us in traffic, the lady cutting in line. Everyday we think murderous thoughts about the people in our world, and Jesus has something to say about it. The OT Law was pretty clear about the issue of murder, but Jesus cuts to the source of murder, the initial thoughts. Notice a couple of things here. First, the issue deals directly with how we treat people. Second, Jesus is calling us to dive into our inner core, our thought life, the nature of our hearts. How are we seeing the people around us? What are we allowing to develop in our hearts? God knows that it’s our initial anger that eventually leads to words, and then actions:

 
Proverbs 29:22
An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins.

 
Don’t Even Look at Her That Way!
Tell me this isn’t a tough one for all us guys out there. Especially in the midst of our culture where every television commercial (how about the Paris Hilton Carl’s Junior commercial?) goes to great lengths to arouse and tantalize. How in the world are you supposed to watch this kind of stiff an NOT be aroused? So what are you thinking about? (You know what you are thinking about!) OK, notice again what Jesus is focused on. First, He’s talking about how we treat people, how we see them here on planet earth. Second, he’s once again asking us to change our initial thoughts and heart’s desire. He’s asking us not to see the girl as an object of our lust, but as the sister that God has created:

 
1 Thessalonians 4:3-5
It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God…

 
Don’t Even Think About Walking Out!
Today, divorce is so common and so easily obtained that marriage has completely lost it’s meaning. Some people enter into marriages the way that couples used to enter into dating relationships. When they get tired of the situation, or encounter the first bump in the road, they just hop out of the marriage like they were only dating! And the Old Testament Law did provide for a legal divorce as well. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 said that a man could divorce his wife if he “finds something indecent about her”, but this right (given only to men) had become a broad matter of interpretation. All kinds of divorces were taking place for a variety of reasons by the time Jesus came on the scene. So, Jesus told his listeners that divorce for anything other than marital unfaithfulness should be out of the question. Here he goes again. He’s talking about how we treat people, and he’s trying to get to the heart of the matter. Why are men really trying to leave their wives? Is it because the wife has decided that the relationship is over and has cheated on her husband, or is it simply because it pleases the heart of the man to run after something else, and use any excuse to leave his wife? God doesn’t want us to have a heart that serves itself and is willing to harm our spouse and our children just because something might not be perfect. Jesus said that men had “hardened their heart” by allowing this kind of heart to develop. After all, both husbands and wives were created by God, in his image, and deserve the respect that is due a child of God:

 
Mark 10:6-7
“But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife…”

 
Don’t Even Try to Make a Deal!
How many times have you used an oath or a promise in order to convince someone to do something for you? “I promise I’ll mow the lawn tomorrow if you take me to the store right now!” “I swear to God that I’ll clean this stuff up later if you’ll let me watch this show right now!” How many times have you used an oath or a promise to make yourself look more believable? “I swear on my life I never said that!” What’s happened to our honor and our word if we have to go to these extremes to convince someone that we are being honest? Why can’t we just speak plainly without the verbal gymnastics? Because something has gone wrong with our heart. We know, deep down inside, that we aren’t honest and that we have lied so many times in the past. So now, when we actually AREN’T lying, we find ourselves trying to distinguish the truthful statements from the lies with an oath or promise. And our lies are never without an impact on the people around us. Once again, Jesus is trying to get us to focus on the people in our world, and once again, the King of Kings is trying to get us to change the condition of our heart:

 
Proverbs 16:12-13
Kings detest wrongdoing, for a throne is established through righteousness. Kings take pleasure in honest lips; they value a man who speaks the truth.

 
Don’t Even Think About Taking Revenge!
It’s in our human nature to want to see justices and see it NOW! That’s why I think we like the idea of an ‘eye for an eye’. But we have a justice system in place to take care of justice issues. We are not personally the law and when we play God or Judge and Jury, we take on authority that we don’t actually have. We might like to THINK we have this authority, and in our prideful hearts we act as though we do. But Jesus uses a few extreme examples to try to nudge us from this self righteous position. It’s one thing to call a wrong a wrong, but it’s another to think that we can act as judge to personally right the wrong. Does that make sense? Once again, Jesus is talking about something that has everything to do with our relationship to the people around us and he is calling us to have a change of heart. Stop trying to play God, and let God be God:

 
Romans 12:17-20
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 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.

 
Don’t Stop With Those Who Love You!
In the state prisons across California, there is a code. Yes there is honor among thieves, so to speak. The prison gangs become a source of family with their own rules and set of morals. You take care of the members of your gang, you protect them and you are good to them. The war is with the other gangs in the system. You can kill them all you want, but you take care of fellow gang members. Jesus had this kind of thing in mind when he said, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” To treat enemies as enemies is to treat them as something less than humans created in the image of God. It is to treat them as animals. That is not the heart of God, after all he created all of us and although some of us live in rebellion, we are His creations, none the less. This too, has everything to do with how we see the people around us, and are we willing to adopt the heart of God, who ultimately cares for all His Children, even those who are presently rebelling against Him:

 
Romans 12:20-21
"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." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

 
A Higher Bar?
Boy, Jesus really seems to go beyond the Old Testament Law, doesn’t he? But HOW does he ‘go beyond’? is it a matter of raising the bar much higher than God did through Moses and the Ten Commandments, or is there something else that Jesus is trying to get us to realize? If you read through this part of the Sermon on the Mount with care, I think you’ll see that Jesus is not establishing a HIGHER bar, but rather a DEEPER bar! All the laws we wrote on the left side of the ledger were being obeyed by the religious Pharisees of Jesus’ day, but he still called us to something more. Why? Because he recognized that all the left ledger stuff has to do with how we appear, while all the right ledger stuff has to do with the nature of our HEARTS!! Jesus knows that what starts in the heart, eventually comes out in our actions, and he also knew that the religious Pharisees were looking pretty good, but still have rebellious hearts:

 
Matthew 23:27-28
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”

 
Having Integrity!
Why does Jesus say it is so important for us to be the same on the inside as we appear to be on the outside? It certainly has to do with his statement here about hypocrisy. God is not hypocritical. His nature is to be complete (perfect) and his actions in history reflect his nature perfectly. God call us, as children created in His image to be the same way. But God also knows that outward actions flow from inward thoughts. Change your heart and you will change your behavior. Every planet has life on its surface, but this life is dependent on the core of the planet. Turn off the core and everything on the planet dies. Life on planet earth is actually an overflow of the energy that exists in the planet’s core. It’s not much different with us:

 
Matthew 12:34-35
For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.

 
Pick a Candy
Have you ever gotten a box of See’s candy for Christmas? You know, one of those boxes that has a couple dozen candies that are all covered in chocolate but filled with different centers? Have you ever spent time trying to figure out what’s inside? I mean there’s a big difference between a caramel and a rum nougat!!! I love one and hate the other! Once again, the heart of the candy is far more important than the outside shell! The core matters! That’s why Jesus spend sop much time in the Sermon, trying to get us to see that the heart determines the direction of the body:

 
Matthew 15:18-19
But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

 
It’s All About Worldview
It all comes down to how you see the world. You know that every worldview has to answer three questions, “How did we get here?”, “How did it all get so messed up on planet earth?” and “How can we fix it?” Jesus is trying to get us centered back on the Christian Worldview that tells us that every person here on Earth, has been created by God, in His Image. That means that they have inherent dignity and worth that must be recognized and honored. But life is messed up by the fact that we often treat people like they are animals. We call them names, cheat on them, think lustful thoughts about them, make false promises to them, take our vengeance out on them and treat them like enemies! You would never do that to God, why would you do that to his children? Hey, you wouldn’t even treat your own dog like that!

So what’s the solution? Well, Jesus has already told you that! It’s a change of heart. It’s a matter of changing the way you look at the people around you and embracing the truth that these folks are also the created Children of God. Stop living like an atheist who believes that everyone got here as the result of random chance. If that was true, it would be fine to treat humans like evolved animals. But you and I both know better.

 
Why Is It So Hard?
So if we know better, why is it so hard to change our hearts and live a different life? Well, there are a couple of possible reasons. Many would say that we don’t make these kinds of changes because we are simply unable. We are so fallen as a result of sin in our world that we just CANNOT stop our selves. But is that true? Let’s face it, something is always leading us. Have you ever trued to walk a big dog? Have you ever found that the dog seemed to be walking YOU? How do you correct this? Well, you start by taming the dog. And you also start by understanding that if you don’t lead the dog, he’ll soon be leading you. Who belongs to who? Does the dog belong to you, or do you belong to the dog? We need to remember who we belong to!

 
John 8:42-44
Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire.

 
Others will tell you that it’s not so much a matter of being unable as it is a matter of being unwilling. There is certainly some truth there are well. How many times do you allow yourself to be distracted by all the stuff in your world? All your gadget and electronics, all your relationships, all your school studies? Our world is filled with voices that are trying to talk to us and distract us, even from this part of the Sermon on the Mount! In allowing ourselves to be distracted, we are simply being rebellious! And God knows that our rebellion can be corrected if we will simply take the time to listen to him:

 
Isaiah 30:9
These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the LORD's instruction.

 
The Heart of God, Simply Stated
I love the fact that Jesus ends this call to righteousness with the teaching about loving your enemy, because I believe that this last teaching sums up all the teaching that came before it. If we truly loved all of God’s created children as though they truly were the children of God, would we cheat on them, think lustful thoughts about them, make false promises to them, take our vengeance out on them and treat them like enemies? No, I don’t think so. God wants us to know that righteousness is not caught up in a set of behaviors, but in a change of heart. It’s all about a change of heart that calls us to place LOVE in a position of priority:

 
1 Corinthians 13:11-13
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

 
What Does It Take to Be Perfect?
When we finally have the heart of love that God wants for us, we will truly understand the perfection of God. When Jesus tells us to be perfect, even as our heavenly father is perfect, he uses a word for perfect (‘teleios’ in the Greek) that simply means ‘complete’. That’s really kind of an interesting way to think about perfection. Imagine that you got a beautiful new corvette as a birthday gift, and it was parked out on your driveway. You walk up and see how amazing it is. It shines and sparkles. You get in and turn the key. Nothing happens.

Than you get out and lift the hood. There is NO ENGINE!! The car isn’t very complete, is it? It looks good on the outside but without a motor, it isn’t worth much. When Jesus calls us to be perfect, he is calling us to be complete. In essence, he is calling us to a life of integrity, in which our inner thought life and our outer behavior are consistent. They match. We are complete. And God knows that this is a process that will never reach this perfection in this life. How do I know this is true? Well, there are other saints from the Bible who are identified as perfect, yet were just as blemished as you and I. Take a look at Job:

 
Job 1:1
There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.

 
Here Job is described as perfect and upright, and the Book of Job does portray him as a man of integrity. But he would be the first to tell you that he was not without sin:

 
Job 9:20
“Even if I were innocent, my mouth would condemn me; if I were blameless, it would pronounce me guilty.”

 
Job, like us, was a work in progress. But in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is calling us to BE perfect, and the way the Greek is being used here (in the original text), He is calling us to perfection NOW!!! So how can we be perfect now if we are still a work in progress? Here’s how:

 
Hebrews 10:14
…by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy

 
Scripture tells us that we are made perfect by the finishing work of Jesus Christ on the cross. When he died for our sins, we were made POSITIONALLY perfect before a holy God. We can stand before God AS IF we were perfect based on the perfection of Jesus. God looks at us, and sees the perfection of Jesus. At the same time, we are being MADE holy day by day. This is PRACTICAL perfection. While we may never be practically perfect, if we place our faith in Jesus Christ and trust Him for our salvation, we are already positionally perfect. Faith alone does this for us, and our good works, although they certainly demonstrate our love for God, cannot save us or make us perfect before a Holy Creator:

 
Hebrews 7:18-19
The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.

 
Who Are You Going to Listen To?
The former regulation of the Law has been set aside so that a better hope (our faith in Christ) can allow us to draw near to God. The cross of Christ saves us, but even more than that, the cross calls us to a new life and a new heart. Jesus was willing to die on that cross for our sake, and as we surrender to his words in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has the ability to change our hearts. He is calling us to a life that will in many ways contradict the world around us. People are often inclined to hate before they are inclined to love. So, each of us has got to decide whether we are going to listen to the crowd or to the cross.