Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. He said not a heretic or a yod could pass on the original Word of God from Genesis to Malachi.
A heretic and a yod in English, in our culture, you could say an apostrophe or a comma. He said not one of those will pass. Every aspect of the law, every single letter written will pass. Wow, that's an amazing statement of his confidence in the law. In fact, he goes on and he says, I say to you until heaven and earth pass away. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt.
Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Jesus Christ had a unique gift. He had an ability to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.
And boy, he did both of them to an amazing degree. Nowhere is this more evident than what has been known as the Sermon on the Mount. The sermon itself is a polemic. And what I mean by that is Jesus is making an argument. He is showing how much he is against the whole idea of external religious living.
He's going out of his way. And you have to understand the audience that heard him instinctively wanted to reject everything he said. Almost everything he said was against what they were taught as children, their grandparents, great grandparents.
Everybody believed a certain way. And Jesus comes on the scene in the Sermon on the Mount and he changes everything. He just talks about it in a very different kind of way. And it's clear Jesus was never really interested in winning friends.
He was never interested in being politically correct because he certainly wasn't in his culture. So I want to take a look at the Sermon on the Mount in the beginning of the sermon this morning and to show you how he sets the stage for the rest of the sermon. So I'd like you to go to Matthew chapter 5 and verse 17. As you remember the first week we dealt with the Beatitudes.
And even those were completely foreign to what people believed. He says, blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom. Blessed are those who mourn. I'm sure the audience is like, what is he talking about? And he's saying, look, the only people that are going to be blessed and see the kingdom of heaven are the people who see themselves as completely bankrupt on the inside.
They're the only ones. And he goes on and he says, blessed are the gentle, they'll inherit. Blessed are those of hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, pure in heart peacemakers.
It's amazing. And he said, and they'll be persecuted. And then he shifted last week and he went into the salt and light passage for his disciples. And it seemed, well, now he's going in a new direction and he's back to his original thought this week, starting in verse 17. The very first thing that Jesus wants to do is he wants to destroy, he wants to destroy the criticism of him. Jesus is incredibly criticized. It's just beginning his ministry.
He anticipates, of course, he's the son of God and he knows what's going to happen and how basically the religious leadership of Israel feel about him. So he starts out in verse 17 and he says, do not think that I came to abolish the law and the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. That's the criticism of Jesus starts from day one. The Pharisees told the people over and over again that Jesus Christ is here to abolish, particularly the law. Or Jesus says the law and the prophets, the law and the prophets means Genesis to Malachi. That's the law and the prophets, the whole Old Testament. His enemies said, look, he's trying to destroy what Moses has given us, the law, because the Pharisees believed that the key to having an eternal relationship with God is keeping the law.
You do the externals, you go through the religious practices and you'll be fine with God. And Jesus is saying just the opposite. So they said what he's doing, he's trying to abolish it. Now, understand that the Pharisees, they didn't just keep the law. Their view is if God gave us 10 laws, it'd be better to add 100 to it. If he gave us a couple hundred laws, let's add hundreds more.
The more laws you are, the better off you are with God. I'll give you an example just for some more for the Sabbath. If it was a Sabbath day in Israel at this time, you were not allowed to move a lamp in your house. So if you had an oil lamp, you could not move it. If you moved it on the Sabbath, you broke the law. Secondly, if you were a tailor and you had an outer robe on and you had a needle stuck into it from your trade, you were carrying a burden and you broke the law.
That's clearly a break of the law. Strangely enough, if you had some form of an artificial leg, you had to take it off on the Sabbath because you could not wear it. That was carrying a burden. If you had a crutch, you had to lay it down and not use it on the Sabbath. Many of the rabbis believed you were not allowed to carry a baby on the Sabbath. You have to leave the baby down.
I mean, you can imagine how hard these are to deal with. You couldn't heal on the Sabbath, but if someone was deathly ill, you could stop them from dying, but you were forbidden to make them well, which is showing you how they just split hairs over all this. This is how they thought. The more externals we do, the more God will be pleased with us. Jesus said, look, I didn't come to abolish the law and prophets. He said I came to fulfill them. Now, this is interesting.
They would have never saw this. This is the Messiah's rule. If I said to you, what is the real subject matter from Genesis to Malachi? Jesus.
What's Genesis to Malachi about? Jesus. Everything in the Old Testament is about Jesus. Everything in the Old Testament is the shadow of the substance to come. And Jesus said, I've come. Now I fulfill the law. Think about it. Did he fulfill the law from a point of view of the moral law? Yes. Who else did?
No one. He lived the perfect life without sin. So he fulfilled the demands of the law.
Think of the whole idea of the justice of the law. Did he fulfill the justice of the law? Yes. Yes, he did. He paid the price of sin in full for everyone. Did he fulfill the ceremonial aspects of the law?
Yes. John the Baptist saw him the first time and said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus said, that's what I'm here for.
I have fulfilled the law. So then he goes on and he says, For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until it all is accomplished. This incredible statement on Jesus' part. Jesus is telling you his view of the Old Testament. Jesus is a complete inerrantist. So much so that he said not a heretic or a yod could pass from the original word of God and from Genesis to Malachi.
A heretic and a yod in English, in our culture, you could say an apostrophe or a comma. He said not one of those will pass. Every aspect of the law, every single letter written will pass. Wow, that's an amazing statement of his confidence in the law. In fact, he goes on and he says, you know, he says, I say to you until heaven and earth pass away. He says, when there is no more of a physical creation, the law is still here. That's his interpretation of the law. He said, whoever then annals one of the least of these commandments, teaches others to do the same, shall be least in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever keeps and teaches them will be great in the kingdom of heaven.
That's sort of against his critics. He said, I would never annul anything that the word of God has said. I would never do that.
I would never teach anybody to annul it. Notice he's not talking about how you get a relationship with God because both of these examples are in heaven. They're both in the kingdom of heaven. Those who are hypocritical would be least.
But those who teach it and model it in their lives, they'll be great in the kingdom. So, so far, everybody listening to him is probably like you just wondering, where's this going? Like, what's he going to say? What's he talking about?
That's when he drops verse 20 in. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you'll never get into the kingdom of heaven. The first week I said this, and I still mean it, I believe that caused people to yell in anger. I believe women fainted. I believe people shook their heads. This is completely foreign to anything they've ever heard in their entire lives.
This is, it's stunning that it's unimaginable for them. At this time, the Jews had a saying, if there are only two people in heaven, one would be a scribe and one would be a Pharisee. See, that's what they believed. These are the most righteous men in our country. These are the most religious.
This is the model for all of us. And Jesus says if you aren't more righteous than they are, you don't have a chance of a relationship with God. Wow. That's an amazing thing when you think about it from that point of view. How could he say such a thing? Well, I think that the reason is is that Jesus is making his statement. He's going to show it the whole way through this sermon. If you're counting on any religious external exercise to make your relationship right with God, you'll never see God.
Not ever. No matter what you do, no matter how many acts you have, none of it, none of it will ever start a relationship with God. That's why you start out with the Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the spiritually bankrupt. They're going to see the kingdom. That's the first step. But the problem with the religious folks, especially the Pharisees, look, I know what I'm doing.
I do the law. And God's going to say, wow, you're impressive. You see, we don't do that as much. We still have religious people in our culture. But in our culture, what do you run into even more than that? Great on the curve moral people.
That's most people in our culture. Most people will say, well, do you think if you were to die right now and you were to stand in front of God, what reason would you give him to let you into heaven? And almost everybody you talk to will say, well, I've been a pretty good person. You know, I've been faithful to my wife.
I've tried a home job. I've been a good parent. Really? See, that's no different than saying, you see, I kept all those religious observations.
It's the same thing. It's self-righteousness. God will grade on the curve and he'll say, you're in.
You did pretty good. God's standard is not pretty good. His standard is perfection because he's God. See, that's the point. That's what Jesus is going to try to say here.
That's what this requires. It has to be inward and pure. And it can only be given to us by God and the one who paid for it all is the one who fulfilled the law, and that's Jesus Christ. So then he moves, starting in verse 21, six times. Jesus is going to do something that no rabbi would ever do. But I say. Rabbis didn't talk like that. If you were a rabbi and you wanted to exercise authority, you would quote other rabbis. You would quote tradition. But you would never say, but I say. Jesus is six times, and he doesn't just say, but I say. He actually says, I say, but. And what I mean by that is the word ego in the beginning of it, I, is for emphasis the first word of the sentence.
Just like I've told you before, it's an exclamation point. I say. No one talks like that. Notice what he's talking about. He's quoting what they think is Old Testament, and he's saying, but I say.
The authority that he has is just ridiculous. Nobody talks like that in his world. But Jesus is going to do it six times. So he says, you have heard that the ancients were told. Now, he didn't say scripture says. He said the ancients were told. This is the religious tradition.
And he has a reason for it. He says, you have heard that the ancients were told you shall not commit murder. Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court. Now, in the beginning, that sounds, well, wait, that's what scripture said. It's one of the Ten Commandments, isn't it? Yes, it is.
But they added something to it. Who commits murder shall be liable to the court. No, if you look at the Old Testament, who commits murder is executed. But they had a term used liable to the court where people who were connected, really connected, sort of like Sadducees, they might get a lesser sentence off of something like this. I mean, you would never imagine that in any culture, would you?
Where the really affluent people would actually get a little bit better treatment, the connected people than the rest of us. I mean, that's what was happening in their day. And they said that. So Jesus said, let me explain to you that that doesn't mean much. He goes on. He says, but I say to you, everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court. Now, how bad do you think is murder?
I mean, if you're honest, it's like really bad, like really bad. How about anger? If I ask you, how many of you raise your hand and say you're a murderer? Please don't. You'll scare the daylights out of the people around you.
But the point is, it'd be rare. How many of you have ever been angry? Jesus said, yeah, you're just as guilty. What? No, no, no. Now, we know on a horizontal plane, would it be better for the culture and particularly for you if I was just angry at you rather than I murdered you? Yes.
Yes. Horizontally, that's true. But Jesus is talking from God's perspective. Now, watch what he does.
He keeps going with this. He says, whoever says to his brother, you're good for nothing, you'll be guilty before the Supreme Court. Now, you would never do that. You never told someone you're good for nothing or thought that. Never.
Then the last one, whoever says you fools shall be guilty enough to go to fiery hell. Uh-oh. You ever thought that?
That guy's an idiot. I mean, you think that. Jesus says, yeah, that puts you in hell.
Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm not a murderer. But what Jesus is saying is, look, sin's universal. We're all sinners, all of us. And the sin that we have is enough to condemn us forever. James wrote that if you do not fulfill one aspect of the law, you're guilty of the whole law, every bit of it. In other words, if you broke every commandment every day of your life or you broke one commandment on one minute of your life, you're equally guilty because the standard's perfection. You see, when you say that to a religious person, they're like, I don't get that. I was sure God was going to be really impressed with what I do. You see, and he says that, and it's an interesting thought from that point of view.
He makes it as clear as he can. It's sobering to me to think that my thoughts and my words are enough to condemn me. And it's something you and I should be reminded of all the time. What Jesus is trying to say here is, do you have any sense of how serious sin is? You see, it's one thing to say, wow, I just love the idea he came and he died for my sins. But if he died for my sins, why am I so readily available to keep on sinning?
Why do I do this? I don't think it's that bad. I mean, think of all the terms we've used. Here's a challenge for scripture. Show me in a Bible where it says a white lie. Why do we say that?
Because it's not that bad. White lies aren't that bad. I mean, they're bad lies.
And white lies. Jesus said, listen, if murder and anger are the same, what do you think you're going to do with God when it comes to big lies and white lies? It's all the same from God's point of view. So he then goes to another area.
It's very important to them. He said, therefore, if you're presenting your offering at the altar and they remember that your brother has something against you, you have to leave your offering there before the altar and go and be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your offering. What does he mean? Don't mock God by worshipping Him while you're in sin.
Don't do that. This one's the idea that I have a problem with my brother. He said, yeah, reconciliation is very important. You have to be reconciled with your brother before you're going to tell God I'm reconciled with you and I'm worshipping you. He said, you can't do it that way.
It's not the way it works. You see, one of the beatitudes, he said, remember, he said, blessed are the peacemakers. OK, we go, yeah, he said, then go make peace.
You see, if blessed are the peacemakers, you go and make peace. And it's going to get worse as he goes on and he keeps talking about this. He goes on and then he says, make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge and the judge to the officer and you'll be thrown into prison. Truly, I say to you, you will not come out of there until you've paid your last cent.
What's he talking about? Be reconciled. Paul talks about this in Corinthians in the context of the church. If you have a problem that could end up in court with a brother in Christ, settle it. Settle it. You see, and how are we going to settle it? Just the way we settle almost all relational problems. Somewhere in a relational problem you have with a stranger, a friend, a family member, a spouse, somewhere in there, somebody is going to have to forgive. Somebody has to forgive unconditionally.
You see, that's the balm of all relationships. He said, yeah, get this right, but don't come mocking me. You see, John said it differently in his epistles. He said, please don't come and say, I love God, but I hate you guys. You see, he said, you can't do this.
That's not the way this works at all. And from their point of view, this made sense. Pharisee didn't make sense. Pharisees are elitist. Remember, in Luke 18, the Pharisee was at the temple and what did he thank God for? God, I thank you that I'm better than all you guys. I thank you for that.
I'm better than these people. And the tax gatherer beat his chest, put his head down and said, have mercy on me, the sinner. And Jesus said, which one comes away justified? You see, that's his point.
And so this is something they would have really struggled trying to get it all. He then goes on to verse 27 and says, you have heard it was said, you shall not commit adultery. Once again, that's clear to us. Once again, we see this whole idea of adultery. Right in the Ten Commandments.
But I say to you, contrast. He says, everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery in his heart. Wow, God's standard. Wow. See, a religious person could say, look, I've been married for a long time and I never committed adultery.
And that makes it sound pretty good. OK, but Jesus put it to a standard that makes it a lot more difficult. If I've ever looked at any woman with lust just like adultery. I'm already an adulterer in my heart. Now, I hope you start feeling uncomfortable because I think you start thinking, wow, that's me. You see, that's me.
Yes. See, what's his point here? The point is, your issue is inside of you. Your issue is that you're poor in spirit. Your issue is that you're dead in sin. And no amount of externals will ever stop this. You can't stop it with external religiosity.
It's never going to work. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.
At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org. That's F-B-C-N-O-L-A dot O-R-G. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.
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