What are the Commandments of Jesus?

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Today is going to be one of those teaching days.

I'm not going to take any calls, but we're going to dive into the Scriptures together. You know, part of what we do is do our best to ground all of you in the Word more deeply and to tackle controversial issues but in a practical way. And this helps us shine like lights in the world. This helps us be the salt of the earth. This helps us please the Lord and honor Him and walk with Him. You know, we never get into controversy just for the sake of controversy.

We never just start fires without getting some warmth and heat and light from those fires. So, there are many, especially those who say that the Ten Commandments, including the Seventh-day Sabbath, are valid for all believers today. There are many who would point to the words of Jesus in John 14 where He said, if you love Me, keep My commandments, or if you love Me, you will keep My commandments. And they would say the commandments, that means the Ten Commandments.

Is that correct? Now, if Jesus wanted everyone to observe the Seventh-day Sabbath and He taught that, that was part of New Testament teaching, I would wholeheartedly embrace it. I mean, as a Jewish believer, the Seventh-day Sabbath still has meaning to me, right? And unless it's a ministry day where I'm actually speaking and ministering on the Sabbath, it is a rest day for me. Otherwise, I'm like the priest in the temple who also served on the Sabbath. So, I've got no problem embracing that. And I don't believe that anywhere in the New Testament, Jesus or the apostles commanded that the Sabbath would switch from Saturday to Sunday. However, I do not see it taught in the New Testament that that which is given as a sign to ancient Israel, namely the Seventh-day Sabbath, is something binding for all Christians today. If that's what the text said, I would absolutely embrace it. So, what do I actually believe on that?

I'll come to that a little later. But first, I want to look at what the commandments are when Jesus said, if you love Me, keep My commandments. And I want to spend the bulk of this broadcast looking at the words of Jesus, Yeshua's own words, in terms of what the commandments are. If we love the Word, if we love the Lord, we should love His commandments as well.

So, we know the account, the rich young ruler. So, in Mark the 10th chapter, then you have parallels in Matthew 19 and in Luke 19 as well. So, you have the rich young ruler and he comes to Jesus and he says, what should I do to inherit eternal life?

And Jesus says to him, Mark chapter 10, verse 19, you know the commandments. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness.

Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother. And he says, well, you know, I've kept all these since my youth. And Jesus said, one thing you're lacking. If you want to be perfect, sell your possessions, give to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven.

And he walks away sad. Well, Jesus is obviously exposed in the fact that he was covetous. Jesus was exposed in the fact that he didn't love his neighbor as himself and getting to the root of some issues in his life because he didn't require everyone that followed him to sell their possessions and give to the poor. He recorded us on a deeper level to leave everything and follow him, right? So, in our hearts, we have to abandon everything and he becomes the exclusive Lord of our lives.

Not the first love among many others, but the love. And then everything else is filtered through that. But someone said, look, it's clear here that Jesus refers to these as the commandments. And he said about the 10 commandments. Well, actually do not defraud is not one of the 10 commandments, right?

Just to be precise. And throughout the Old Testament, the 10 commandments are not referred to as the 10 commandments. They're often referred to as the 10 words. The word mitzvah, commandment in Hebrew is used for many, many, many other commandments. And, you know, in Judaism, Judaism speaks of tariag mitzvot, tariag meaning the acronym for 613 commandments. So, some would argue when Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments. He doesn't just mean the 10 commandments. He means all of the Sinai covenant.

And there's some who argue for that. So, let's break this down and let's go into John's gospel, where we see the word entele, commandment, which is the equivalent of Hebrew mitzvah, commandment, where we see how that is used in John's gospel. Because that's where he refers to my commandments.

So, let's go over to John's gospel and take a look there. And we'll start in, let's see, John chapter 12, verse 49. Jesus says, I've not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment, what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life.

What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me. Well, there is no time of the 10 commandments, right? John chapter 12, verses 49 and 50. He's not talking about the 10 commandments there. He's talking about the command that the Father gave him to bring eternal life.

Okay. John chapter 13, verse 34. Now, this is where it really starts to break down in an important way because he's talking specifically about his commandments. Here's what I am commanding you. John 13, 34, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. It's John 13, 34.

Whoa. So, here Jesus is not just repeating the 10 commandments. Here Jesus is saying, I'm giving you a new commandment. It's not a love one another. Yes, you had the teaching, v'hafta lereicha kamocha, love your neighbors yourself, but I'm now telling you, I'm telling this to a higher level, you are to love one another as I have loved you. This is to the point of laying down our lives one for another. A new commandment I give you.

Now, it's in that context. It's just a few verses later and this is all one setting where Jesus is with his disciples, washing their feet and teaching them and having his last meal with them shortly before he is crucified. What does he say? John 14, 15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. What are his commandments? He's not talking about the 10 commandments here. He's not talking about the Sinai covenant commandments.

He's not talking about that. In point of fact, friends, in John's gospel, the word commandment never refers to either the 10 commandments or the 613 commandments of the Torah. John 14, 23, whoever has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest my love to him. John 15, 10, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. And he's told us earlier that the commandments are to do what he sees the father doing and speak what he hears from the father. Look again in John 15, verse 12. John 15, verse 12. And these are all the times that the word command commandment occurs in the Gospel of John.

We just read them all here. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. So when he speaks of a commandment in John's gospel, friends, he's not speaking of the 10 commandments. He's not speaking of the 613 commandments of the Sinai covenant.

He's not speaking of that. He's speaking of the commands that he's given. My commandments, if some have said, if you have a red letter Bible, the red letter words of Jesus that he speaks to his disciples. So I went to some different websites just looking to see how they listed the commandments of Jesus. What were his unique or specific commandments? One website had seven commandments of Jesus.

Another website, CARM, which is a great resource, a great apologetics resource, had a list of over 40. So what I want to do is spend the rest of this broadcast digging into the word with you and refreshing our minds as to the commands of Jesus. He says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. Well, what are your commandments? He wasn't just reinforcing the 10 commandments.

He wasn't just reinforcing the 613 commandments of the Torah, which we all acknowledge that many of those commandments finding fulfillment in him, such as the commandments store for blood sacrifices and things like that, they find their fulfillment in him and we don't need to offer those blood sacrifices. You say, but Dr. Brown, what do you believe about the Seventh-day Sabbath? Okay, so to make this clear, and we virtually don't take calls on that subject anymore because it's one of those few subjects, divorce, remarriage, Sabbath that we would get week in, week out, the same questions over and over.

So we have so many resources on the website. If you call in, unless it's a specific nuance about the question that you're asking, if you call in, the call screener will normally say, hey, just go to Dr. Brown's site, search for Sabbath, search for divorce, search for this word, women in ministry, et cetera, because you'll see that we've got many, many resources, short and long addressing this. So short version, I believe that God gave the Seventh-day Sabbath specifically as a sign to Israel. It may have been established at creation, but in point of fact, it was given as a specific covenantal sign to the people of Israel. Number one. Number two, there is no evidence anywhere in the New Testament or the early church writings that Gentile Christians were commanded to observe the Seventh-day Sabbath.

Note that they have a work structure in the Roman world that did not have, or Greco-Roman world did not have a seven-day work cycle where they were able to function in that way. That's number two. Number three, I see warnings in the New Testament about anyone putting you under pressure to observe a Seventh-day Sabbath. Number four, I see that ultimately our rest, what the Sabbath points to is finding rest in Jesus, rest from our own works, rest from our own labors, rest from the burden of our sins.

I see that as well. And with that, with that I do not see anywhere in the New Testament though where the Seventh-day was shifted over to Sunday. What I do find is liberty laid out in Romans 14 where there is a community of Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus living together and the Jewish believers held to certain things and the Gentile believers held to other things and Paul was saying, this is how you live side by side. If someone says, God gave a Seventh-day Sabbath, I believe it's good and I'm going to keep it, God bless you.

You are free to do it. Certainly there is an important principle, the importance of rest and to the extent that we are able to incorporate real Sabbath rest and refreshing and renewal into our life, we ought to. It is good and healthy and life-giving. But the Seventh-day Sabbath was a command for Israel under the Sinai Covenant and even though it was one of the Ten Commandments and even though through much of church history, Sunday Sabbath was enforced even legally in countries that had Christian governments or Christian-leading governments, I do not believe we can make a Biblical case for Sunday being the Sabbath. Can it be set aside as a Sabbath especially for Gentile Christians? Absolutely, a day of rest, restoration, renewal. Does it seem that there will be a Seventh-day Sabbath in the Millennial Kingdom and Israel is the lead nation? It seems that way but it does not seem based on Scripture to be commanded. I can say clearly there is nowhere in the New Testament where followers of Jesus, especially Gentile followers of Jesus, are commanded to keep a Seventh-day Sabbath nor should you let anyone judge you by your keeping or not keeping of it. Alright, those are my views. Feel free to differ. We can still love Jesus together.

We'll come back and look at the actual commandments of Jesus. I've kept it up by God's grace now for nine years going from three headaches a week to no headaches in nine years, blood pressure as high as 149 over 103, now maybe 105 over 70 on average. I mean radical transformation and I encourage you to look at your life, look at your diet, ask are you going in the right direction or do you need to make some changes.

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Shall we dive into the words of Jesus together? Shall we immerse ourselves in the commands of the Lord? When he said, If you love me, keep my commandments. Which commandments did he need? Certainly the new commandment to love one another as he loved us. A commandment that could only be lived out after his death and resurrection.

In other words, only when we saw the depth of his love for us and what it means to love one another as he loved us. But there are many other commands that he gave in the New Testament. In fact, the New Testament is filled with commandments.

There are people who teach what I refer to as hyper-grace, an exaggerated grace message that goes beyond what scripture teaches. And they have a real issue with commandments. To them, that's all legalism. No, legalism is externally imposed and legalism is laws without love, rules without relationships, standards without a savior.

Legalism is trying to change someone from the outside in. The gospel changes us from the inside out and it comes with many, many commandments. Read through the New Testament and you'll see commandment after commandment after commandment. Even given as such where Paul will say, I command you, I command you to live a certain way. All right, so let's go to the CARM website, carm.org, and let's look at their page on the commandments of Jesus. Now they say a few paragraphs down, we do not list all of the commands of Christ here because as I said above, some commands apply only to the people at the time you walk the earth. Nonetheless, the following are those commandments of Christ that apply to us.

Obviously people can debate which apply to us and which do not. So if we scroll down a little bit, we'll see number one, repent. Then number two, follow him. Number three, let your light shine.

I'm just going to read them all through. Number four, be reconciled. Number five, don't lust. Number six, make no oaths. Number seven, don't resist evil with evil. Number eight, love and pray for your enemies. Number nine, be perfect.

Number 10, seek God's kingdom first. Number 11, don't judge. 12, don't give what is holy to dogs. 13, treat people as you want to be treated. 14, enter heaven through the narrow gate.

15, beware of false prophets. 16, follow Jesus. 17, ask God to send out workers. 18, don't fear those who can kill the body. 19, come to Jesus for rest.

20, confront brothers in private first. 21, forgive seven times 70. 22, render to Caesar what is Caesar's. 23, love God. 24, love your neighbor. 25, partake of communion. 26, keep guard against sin. 27, make disciples. 28, preach the gospel. 29, be on guard against greed. 30, invite the poor.

31, love one another. Okay, so that'll keep us busy for a lifetime I would say. Others would come up with more. Others would reduce that list a little bit. But let's break these down. Let's read these.

Let's think about these. Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commands. This is loyalty to the Lord. This is love for the Lord. This is fellowship with the Lord.

Look, think of it like this. A man is madly in love with a woman, and she seems to be madly in love with him. So he sits down and asks her the big question, will you marry me? And she says, absolutely, I will marry you. I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. But I hope you don't think that that means you'll be the only person in my life.

I mean, I hope I'll still have some flexibility to see my old boyfriends that, you know, sometimes spend the night with them. And I hope that being with you the rest of my life doesn't mean to that I won't meet some other new people and maybe want to be with them too. Well, that's the end of the marriage right there. That's the end of the relationship. If you're going to have other loves, if you're going to have other loyalties, if you're going to cheat, well, no, then you are not exclusively mine.

You don't belong to that person exclusively. Well, in the same way, we show our loyalty, we show our love by the works that we do. We are not saved by our works. We are not saved by our works. I repeatedly see people making false accusations that I teach, we are saved by our works or kept by our works.

No, we're not. I never taught that, don't believe that. I absolutely believe that good works are a proof of our salvation. I make that case explicitly whether you want to go to Paul or Jacob, James or John. I make that case explicitly in the New Testament. I can absolutely demonstrate clearly from the New Testament that true repentance is a fruit of true salvation and that we prove our salvation, we prove our repentance by our deeds.

And again, I can go to Paul as well as other writers in the New Testament. In other words, Paul who taught grace and emphasized it so greatly, I can go to his very words for that and I can clearly show that if someone claims to be a follower of Jesus and is walking in blatant, overt rebellion, either that person was never saved, if you say that it's impossible to forfeit our salvation, well then fine then that person was never saved according to the New Testament or those like me who believe you can choose to forfeit your salvation, you can walk away from the Lord which then will be demonstrated by persistent rebellion, self-will and refusal to follow the Lord. But that's not what saves you or loses you. What saves you is living true faith in Jesus. What loses you is rejection of that real true faith and both are manifest through our deeds.

Both are manifest. That husband demonstrates his love for his wife by his loyalty to her, by his faithfulness to her. That is the demonstration of his love.

And he demonstrates the lack of that love, the repudiation of that love when he walks away from her and shacks up with another woman and never comes back. In any case, please hear me, the entire New Testament emphasizes, highlights, points to our obedience to God, calls us to it. It is completely by grace we are saved. Our sins are washed away through the blood of Jesus, not through our good works. A trillion good works kept for the rest of the days of our lives will not pay for our sins. We can never wash away the stain of our sin. In fact, our good works are still stained with sin. Okay? As when Israel confesses in Isaiah, all of our righteousness is just like filthy rags, like a menstrual cloth. That's our best efforts.

That's what it looks like. Alright? So we understand that. We understand that a million billion good works, all the fasting, all the praying cannot wash away our sins and cannot bring us into right relationship with God. Without the blood of Jesus, we are lost.

But without question, the entirety of the New Testament, you can go to virtually any book, I mean, Philemon won't get into this in depth, but virtually any book of any length in the New Testament, even Jude, just one chapter, and it will emphasize holiness. It will emphasize obedience. It will emphasize our calling to turn away from sin and yield our lives to the Lord. That is the gospel lived out. And what happens when we fall short, which happens whether we know it or not on a daily basis, we are continually being cleansed by the blood of Jesus. First John one seven if we Hey friends, this is Dr. Michael Brown.

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on this special teaching edition of the line of fire, not taking calls today. But remember you can always write to us if you're really struggling with a question, you're unable to call in. Don't post it on social media because we're unable to respond to 99.9% of posts on Facebook and YouTube, Twitter, Instagram simply because of the number of people that we reach there and the number of questions that can come in. But by all means if you're really struggling with something and really need an answer, we're not your pastor, we can't take that role in your own life but there are many questions, even life questions you're struggling with where we can be of help. So you can write to us through the website AskDr.Brown.org askdrbrown.org just click on contact and you will get a response. You'll first get a response saying that I can't respond personally to every email but then you will get a response from our team. If it's a prayer request we will have folks on our team praying for you. We are here to equip and help every way that we possibly can and one of the great joys of my life is when I meet a stranger and I told you this many times but I'll meet a stranger so in an airport or grocery store or just some random place and they come up to me with a big smile. So I know what it means because I don't know who they are and I see the big smile of familiarity and I know what they're going to say, Dr. Brown, I listen to you on radio every day or Dr. Brown, I listen to your podcasts, I watch your videos.

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We're going to dig into the teachings of Jesus in depth in the moments ahead, but please hear me, unless the church leads the way in bringing moral and cultural reform, it will be primarily done by the world, primarily done by politics. And what that means is as soon as you get rid of the people you don't like, other forces will push back even more vehemently because their hearts haven't been changed. Their minds haven't been changed. Something that they differ with has been pushed on them.

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So join the Radio Revolution, 800-538-5275, or go to AskDrBrown.org, A-S-K-D-R Brown.org, click on Donate Monthly Support or on your app, click on Give and then Monthly Support. All right, let's spend the rest of our time together reading the words of Jesus. The first recorded words of Jesus in Matthew's Gospel echo exactly what John the Immerser said in the third chapter of Matthew's Gospel, namely, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, Matthew 4.17.

Now you say, well, wasn't that inaugural, wasn't that the preaching of Jesus as he's here announcing the kingdom of God is about to break in? Yes, but it's an ongoing principle of the kingdom. That's why Jesus in Luke 13, verses 3 and 5, tells the people there, the Jews of his day, unless you repent, you too will perish. Meaning, yeah, you've heard about calamities happening to others. They weren't worse than anybody else.

The people who died in an earthquake, the people who died in a mass shooting, they're not worse than anybody else. That's what Jesus is saying. But unless you repent, you too will perish.

This is a universal principle. Jesus says in Luke 5 that he didn't come for the righteous but the sinners, but to lead them to repentance. Basilica Schlink, all the Christian women who opposed Nazism boldly in the last century and then found that the evangelical sisterhood of Mary. Basilica Schlink has a book on repentance, the joy filled life, and said when he preached that it was clear this was his ongoing message. It was the first of the 95 theses of Martin Luther, that repent was an ongoing lifestyle. You say, what does repentance mean? I've heard it just means a change of mind.

No, false. Repentance in Hebrew and then as preached in the New Testament using Greek words. But with these biblically based Jewish concepts, it means a change of heart and mind. It means not just to feel regret or remorse but to make a turn, to turn away from sin and to turn to God, to turn away from self and turn to the Savior.

That's what it means. And by God's grace we are empowered to do it. We cannot do it within ourselves but the Gospel gives us the power to repent.

Alright, a second command. Jesus says, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Matthew 4.19. I don't believe that was just for the people of Jesus' day.

That remains the calling. Right, doesn't he say elsewhere? And this was something that could have been quoted on the Carm website. That's why I say there are more verses that could have been quoted.

How about this? You have it in Matthew 16, Mark 8 and Luke 9. If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. That's Gospel 101. Who changed that?

When did that change? Never did. We hear a contemporary Gospel, which is really no Gospel at all, which basically says, come to Jesus and he'll make you into a bigger and better you.

Come to Jesus, get rid of the guilt and the bad feelings and just get the good feelings put inside of you and now your dreams will come true and whatever you wish for is going to happen and you'll be healthy and wealthy. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit but that's the feeling that you often get with the contemporary version of the Gospel. It requires nothing of you. You say, well God's grace requires nothing.

False! God's grace requires everything. The free gift is received now with the reciprocation of your entire life and Titus chapter 2 tells us that God's grace, which has appeared to all men, teaches us to say no to ungodliness and to live disciplined, holy lives in this ungodly world. Right?

So Jesus saves us. Right? Here, think of it like this. Moms, dads, you can relate to this. You've got a two year old child, right? And they walk into the neighbor's yard, you're walking there and what they don't know is the neighbor's got a ferocious dog.

Let's say you're walking right by the fence in your neighbor's yard and that ferocious dog comes running to the fence and bears its teeth and growls and that little child runs and jumps in your arms! Mommy! Daddy! Crying!

Right? That's how we get saved. We jump into God's arms. Help me! Save me! Now we're His, we belong to Him. It's not like, hey save me big dude!

Thanks man! And you walk on your way. That's not salvation. That's not the Gospel.

No! He saves you. He saves me. What does it say in 1 Corinthians 6? You're bought with a price.

You're not your own. Therefore, glorify God in your body. Glorify God in your body.

That's what it says. And King James reflecting other Greek texts in your body and your spirit which are God's. He tells us again in 1 Corinthians 7, you're bought with a price. In 2 Corinthians 5, 15, Paul says this. Paul says that since we realize he died for us, we realize now that all died and therefore we who died no longer live for ourselves but for Him who died for us and rose from the dead.

Ah! Our lives are not our own. Colossians 3, you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. He owns you. He bought you. We jumped into His arms.

Or look at it like this. You're drowning in shark infested waters. I come by in a boat, right? And I reached out. Come on, come on, get in my boat.

Come on, come on. And I pull you out. I risk my own life because I get pulled in and the waters are choppy. I pull you out and you're in the boat now. Alright? I mean with Jesus it's dramatically different.

He actually dies for us, right? But you get the picture. You're in my boat now.

Okay? No, I don't own you in that analogy but you get the picture. You're in my boat. Jesus saves us. Matthew 1, you'll call Him Yeshua because He will save His people from their sins. If it was spoken in Hebrew, you'll call Him Yeshua, He will save. Yeshia, you'll call Him Yeshua.

Yeshia, He will save. If it was Aramaic, the play on words would not be as clear. But, friends, friends, that is the point. He saves us from our sins and we now live to do the will of God. That's why Paul can write in 1 Thessalonians 4, this is God's will, even your holiness, even your sanctification, that you abstain from immorality. So the call to deny yourself, take up the cross, follow Jesus, die to this world, die to sin, now you live to do the will of God. That's the Gospel and it's a free glorious gift, the most wonderful thing imaginable given to us freely. But Jesus saves us. So how about this, if you love me, keep my commands. How about starting with that command? How about that?

For who wants to come after me, let Him deny himself, take up His cross, follow Him, boom. I'm Paul Burnett, a board certified doctor of holistic health and I want to take this opportunity to talk to you about the importance of healthy blood flow and how it's enhanced by a miracle molecule known as nitric oxide. You see, blood vessels release nitric oxide which increases blood flow known as something called vasodilation. At TriVita, we take blood flow seriously for our members and we've developed a nitric oxide plus supplement that has been formulated with natural ingredients designed to maximize nitric oxide production in our blood vessels which increases blood flow. You may be wondering why you don't have as much energy as you used to. One study that I came across revealed that by the age of 40, we only produce about 50% of the nitric oxide production as compared to our 20s and by the age of 70, the study showed that we're only producing about 15 to 25%.

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I am not taking calls today. This is a special teaching broadcast. Friends, what I've just shared the last few minutes of the last segment to me is foundational. It's everything.

If you missed it, make sure you just listen to the podcast or as soon as we're posted on YouTube, go back. Just foundational scripture. The Lord owns us.

He bought us with a price. So He saves us as a gift of grace. Here, it's just like going to heaven. We're going to be with Him forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. And when worldly people say, you know, well, I want to go to heaven.

Well, why? You don't want God now. Heaven's not a place where you drink all you want, don't have a hangover, sleep around all you want, don't get an STD, steal all you want, don't get caught. That's not what heaven's about.

Heaven's the perfect presence of God, perfect life forever. If we don't want it down here, we won't want it up there. Hey, shout out to our co-sponsor TriVita. Thank you for donating 100% of every first order of these great supplements, which I use daily, religiously.

Oh yeah, travel, make sure I do it and benefit from it myself. So thanks to our co-sponsor TriVita, 100% of your first order goes to support the line of fire more than a tithe of all subsequent orders. You can call 800-771-5584.

Tell them Dr. Brown sent you or TriVita.com and put in the code BROWN25 to get your special discount. All right, back to some of the commands of Jesus. How about Matthew 5 16? So Jesus has just said to us, his disciples, you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.

City set on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a candle, lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather they hold it up so everyone can see. A command from Jesus, if you love me, keep my commandments.

How about this? Let your light shine before man in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven. Matthew 5 16. So let your light shine.

If you love him, you keep his commands. This is one of them. Brothers and sisters, let's let our light shine. Brothers and sisters, let's be light.

Let's be soft. Ephesians 5 says you used to be darkness, but now you are light. How about this one? Matthew 5 23 and 24. Be reconciled. What's the context? The context is you're on your way to worship.

You're going to the temple in Jerusalem. You're going to offer something up to the Lord, but you know that your brother or sister has something against you. Now look, people can have something against us and it has nothing to do with us and there's nothing we can do to reconcile. In other words, they have falsely judged us. They have believed lies about us. They have sin in their own heart and you've tried to communicate with them. They won't hear it. They've judged you. I have people post lies about me sometimes by the minute online. I pray for them.

I want God's best for them. I'm not personally hurt by it, but I can't reach out to every one of those people that attacks or lies or spreads misinformation or personal judgment. Let's say there's a relational breach.

I'm aware of it and I participated in it. All right, somehow I'm part of this relational breach. I mistreated a person. I responded wrongly.

I was whatever the case may be, right? So what does Jesus say? So you're on your way. You're going to worship the Lord, worship the Lord. Here, your husband, right? He's got really nasty to your wife and kids and storm down. I've got to go on a prayer meeting. Get out of my way.

You're dragging me down. So you act like a complete jerk, right? And in the language of Proverbs, it says that the short-tempered person exalts folly. I used to teach that you're walking around the house holding up a sign.

You're walking around the place of business, holding up a sign. I am a fool. I am a fool, right?

May rheme velit in Hebrew. You're exalting folly. You're holding it up for everyone to see. So you go to your prayer meeting where you're going to worship the Lord. Maybe you're a worship leader. Oh, I love you, Lord. Holy, holy, holy.

There's no name like yours. And God says, you hypocrite. You hypocrite. Go and be reconciled first. Here are the words of Jesus. Therefore, if you were presenting your offering at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go first, be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your offering. So what Jesus is telling that that husband who just acted like a jerk is before you go lead worship at prayer meeting, even if it means that you have to cancel out, you need to get right first. More important that you get right. If you love me, Jesus says, keep my commands.

This is one of them. Look, it doesn't make a profit to know that with all the people we speak to that some of you right now are in relational breach and it's on you. May not be entirely on you, but at least partially on you. So before you go on with your great act of service, go be reconciled. If you can't, you can't, but at least you do what you can. You humble yourself. You're gracious.

And if they continue to hold something against you, you can't force them. But now you can go with a clean conscience to the Lord. Here's another command of Jesus.

Oh, this one we're more familiar with perhaps. Matthew 5, 27 to 30. So these are just commands from the Sermon on the Mount, right? That's more than enough to work on for the rest of our lives. You've heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery.

Hebrew lo tin af. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. By the way, even though men tend to look more at outward appearance than women in terms of lustful thoughts, I mean, generally, broadly speaking, men will take in more porn than women. Broadly speaking, men will want to have sex without relationship more quickly than a woman.

Broadly speaking, of course, it goes both ways in their exceptions. So this applies to a male or to a female, right? Whatever the lustful object would be. But Jesus, this is a command. I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you. This is the command of Jesus. If you love me, he says, keep my commandments. He's not talking about the 10 commandments. He's not talking about the 613 commandments of the Sinai covenant.

He's talking about his commandments, the ones that he gives us in the New Testament. You say, I don't get this. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you. For it is better for you to lose one of your parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown to hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you. For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Well, we understand. And so this is Matthew 5, then quoted again in Matthew 18 and then Mark 9. One of those passages also mentions if you cut your foot, it causes you to stumble, cut it off, throw it away. Well, your foot doesn't cause you to stumble in terms of spiritually. Your eye doesn't cause you to stumble. Your hand doesn't.

Your hand does not independently go sin, right? Jesus is speaking here metaphorically. So the things that you see, that you choose to see, the things that you choose to touch, the places that you choose to go, if those things cause you to stumble, cut them off, throw them away.

And again, speaking metaphorically and with some hyperbole, but to make the point, it's better for you to go to heaven maimed because ultimately in eternal life, you're not going to be maimed, but better to go to heaven maimed, missing an eye or a leg or a foot, an arm, better to go to heaven like that than go to hell with both eyes and both feet and both hands. Now, when the Bible was being translated into English, there were religious leaders, church leaders that opposed it and said, you're going to have people reading a passage like this and misunderstanding it. And another leader responded by saying, there are plenty of people who've heard this taught and they did not cut off their hand or poke out their eye or cut off their foot. In other words, they understood the spiritual intent of it.

It's clear, but this, this is a strong teaching. Many others from the Sermon on the Mount. Let's move outside of the Sermon on the Mount and oh, let's see.

How about the command to ask God to send out workers? Is the harvest still plentiful? Yes. Are the labor still few?

Yes. Well, then this applies. Matthew 9, 37, 38, Jesus said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out in Greek ekballo, which is used for driving out demons, to send out, to thrust out workers into his harvest. That's a command of Jesus.

How about this? Do not fear those, Matthew 10, 28, who killed the body, but are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. So don't fear people, fear God. That's a command of Jesus.

Or how about this? I'll leave you with this one, Matthew 11, 28, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And he goes on from there and says, learn of me, learn of me, come to me and learn of me. These are commands of Jesus. So friends, when he says, if you love me, keep my commandments, or if you love me, you will keep my commandments. This is what he's talking about. These many commandments that he gives us in the New Testament.

He said, I think I failed right there. Yeah, join the club. We all fall short, which is why we rely on the grace that lives within us, not only to forgive us, but to empower us. You know, there are many people who tell me one of the reasons they follow our ministry is because of my compassion to those that we differ with, my compassion to callers and to others. Friends, that's not my nature. I'm not Mr. Compassion by nature. I'm a New York Jew raised in a home where my dad was a senior lawyer in the New York Supreme Court. I'm a debater. I'm an arguer.

I'm confrontational by nature. I had a terrible temper before I was saved. But God has changed me in many ways. And one is this, being compassionate. I'd love to be much more compassionate. There are many people, so put me to shame with compassion, I'm not in the same universe with them. But I'm also not in the same universe I used to be because of the grace of God changing me. God can empower us to live for Jesus, to keep His commands.

Friends, together He's changing us so we can change the world around us through the power of the gospel. Be sure to download our app if you don't have it. Ask Dr. Brown, ASKD or Brown Ministries. Ask Dr. Brown Ministries. Download it and be blessed. Your program powered by the Truth Network.