Kingdom Righteousness Lived Out! #1
Matthew 5:21-30
Harry Stoliker
June 8, 2008 EBC
Kingdom Righteousness Lived Out!
What's going on in the rest of this Sermon on the Mt. in Matt. 5-7? After
the great warning from Jesus in 5:20: "For I tell you that unless your righteousness
surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly
not enter the kingdom of heaven" – Jesus gives his disciples instructions on
how to live out this Kingdom righteousness.
This morning we will look at Kingdom Righteousness as applied in the areas
of spiritual murder, spiritual reconciliation with brothers before spiritual worship,
spiritual wisdom with non-Christian adversaries, and spiritual adultery.
How's that for practical application of the glorious theology of kingdom
righteousness!
What is "kingdom righteousness?" It is how you live out your life
as a Christian in a fallen world. To be saved and go to heaven you
need to have the "gift of righteousness" – that is, you need God to
give you as a unearned, unmerited free gift, all the merit or credit
that Jesus earned by his life of perfect obedience to every single law of
God. Sinless obedience in action and attitude for every second
of His life earned Jesus perfect righteousness in God's eyes. To get
to heaven you need to have Christ's accomplished righteousness credited to your account
in heaven. That is what has been called "positional righteousness."
You didn't earn it, you just received it as a gracious gift from a Sovereign God.
When you have that gift of Christ's righteousness you are placed in a position or
state of being saved or justified. The gift of Christ's righteousness is
external and not internal righteousness.
From that justified position of being in Christ's righteousness
– you live your life in a way that pleases God. You are not perfect
in your living at any moment, but you live in a way that is worthy of
and honors the gift you have received. Eph. 4:1 "As a prisoner for
the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received."
That means you don't live in a way that contradicts the gift you have
in Christ. You do what is "right" in God's eyes. So, "kingdom righteousness"
is living for the glory, honor and praise of the Righteous God who
saved you by the gift of his Righteous Son.
The Pharisees and scribes lived hypocritically. They pretended to be
righteous before God's eyes but their hearts were not submitted to God's will
and glory. "Kingdom righteousness" is not hypocritical or phony.
It is not just an exterior religiosity or legalistic obedience to
man-made regulations that have nothing to do with the heart of God.
We must go way beyond the quote "righteousness" of the religious legalists.
Sinclair Ferguson said: "Pharisaic righteousness was skin deep; Christian
righteousness is to be real. It is to be true, real, spiritual heart conformity
to the law of God." So, kingdom righteousness is waking up every morning
and saying: "Father, I want to please you with all my desires, thoughts, and actions
today. I want to love what you love and hate what you hate to your glory!"
I. Spiritual Murder – Mt. 5:21-22
A. The main point here is that actually committing a murder is only
the outward manifestation of an inward attitude that is just a guilty
as murder. Angry words and or vicious insults reveal a heart that is as alienated
from the heart of God as is a murderer's heart. Someone called it: "Murder Without
Knives!" "Raca" is from an Aramaic word that meant "empty"
- not a lot different from the second insult "fool." It might
be like screaming at someone: "You stupid idiot!" "You empty-headed
fool!" "You worthless moron!" The precise meaning is still
a bit foggy, but the heart attitude is very clear. It amounts to verbal murder.
"For Jesus, to kill with a knife, or to engage in character assassination
through anger, or to belittle another by calling him a 'fool' is part and parcel
of the same spiritual sickness" (Ferguson).
B. How does God view such language? Could it be that he takes it as
seriously as he does the intentional, unlawful killing of someone?! He certainly
does. The Pharisees thought that all they had to do was avoid the direct command
of Moses in Exodus 20:13 "You shall not murder." Jesus shocks their
hardened hearts by telling them that hateful words against a brother
is tantamount to breaking the 6th commandment. The apostle John
says the very same thing in 1 John 3:15 "Everyone who hates his brother is
a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."
The Pharisees were only concerned with appearances and outward actions, but
God says in 1 Sam. 16:7 "For the Lord does not see as man sees; for
man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."
C. Human punishment was to be dragged before the Sanhedrin and to
lose your physical life. Divine punishment is to be cast into the fire of hell!
The Greek word here (Gehenna) is the place of final destruction of the wicked. It
was the valley outside Jerusalem where human sacrifices by fire to the god
Molech used to happen (2 Kgs. 23:10). Jesus brings the nature of the crime
and the intensity of the punishment to a new and extremely high level!
Let me mention something here: theologians argue back and forth about whether
Jesus is merely expounding and bringing out all the was packed into
the law of Moses in the 10 Commandments or whether He is going beyond the
OT law, advancing, adding or extending it in new ways to show that
He had the greatest authority as God's ultimate law-giver.
Did Jesus merely correct some of the mistaken views and bad interpretations
of the Mosaic law or is He tacitly claiming authority that is superior to
that of Moses? I tend to believe that Jesus is making a clear statement that
he is greater than even Moses in regard to giving God's law, and that whatever
Moses gave in the OC needs now to be seen ultimately through the lens of Jesus
himself. Jesus more than interprets Moses, he never contradicts Moses,
but he extends beyond Moses. So we shouldn't be surprised when Jesus says
so often: "But I say unto you…" The Scriptures all point to the unchallenged
superiority of Jesus Christ as God's ultimate Prophet and King! That's
why you should submit your life to him and live out kingdom righteousness
as He commanded!
D. So, this morning, I urge to not have hateful feelings toward another
brother or sister. If you have, either verbally or in your heart, mocked,
scorned, insulted, berated, belittled, swore at or in any other verbal fashion
poured out 'heart-hatred' against a brother or sister in Christ, you
must QUICKLY repent, for you are in grave danger!
II. Spiritual Reconciliation – Mt. 5:23-26
A. What is the connection here with the previous verses? John Stott says
it well: "Jesus proceeds to give a practical application of the principle
he had just enunciated. His theme was that if anger and insult are so serious and
so dangerous, then we must avoid them like the plague and take action
as speedily as possible." Thus we get two little parables about
reconciliation.
B. Here is a paraphrase of the first parable: If you are sitting here in church
and remember that your brother in Christ is hurt or offended by some of that
'heart-hatred' that has poured out of your mouth, then stop your worship
and get reconciled at the very first opportunity. God demands decisive action
from you to get spiritually reconciled with your brother. He doesn't want
worship that is clogged and fogged by broken relationships in your life.
Seek out your brother and ask for forgiveness for the spiritual murder you have
been committing. Again Stott says it well: "We must never allow an estrangement
to remain, still less to grow. We must not delay to put it right. We must
not even allow the sun to set on our anger. But immediately,
as soon as we are conscious of a broken relationship, we must take the initiative
to mend it, to apologize for the grievance we have caused, to pay the debt
we have left unpaid, to make amends."
C. I'm not going to ask you to jump up in the middle of this worship service
to run over to someone and get reconciled, but I am going to ask and exhort
you to seek reconciliation directly after the last prayer. Do not go home
today without amending the disharmony in your relationship with someone here
you may have offended. You shouldn't be able to worship with a clear conscience
if you know you have committed 'verbal murder' on one of your brothers. If you don't
burn in your heart for reconciliation, your worship is hypocritical and no
better than the Pharisees.
D. The second little parable in Vvs. 25-26, is set in a different
context, a more threatening context. The purpose again is to stress
the urgency of reconciliation. If there is a legal plaintiff that
is about to drag you to court because of an unpaid debt that you have incurred,
then it is urgent and wise to not allow bad relationships to remain unresolved!
E. Again, in V.26 Jesus stresses that the consequences and penalties
of unreconciled relationships is steep and painful. Some of you have been
paying the price of refusing to reconcile as much as is possible with certain
people. I urge you this morning to stop paying that high price and
enjoy the freedom of humble confession and asking forgiveness and peace.
III. Spiritual Adultery – Mt. 5:27-30
A. Jesus quotes verbatim from the LXX of Ex. 20:14/ Dt. 5:18. So, when Jesus
says: "You have heard that it was said…" he is not talking directly about
some perversion of the Mosaic Law, but the 7th commandment itself.
The law forbade any man from having sexual relations with another man's wife.
The penalty was physical death. There is no doubt the legalists tried to reduce
the law accommodate their evil desires by making the divorce law so watered
down that it opened the door for them to find a way to be adulterous without
impunity. If you want another woman, just divorce the one you have, on just
about any grounds.
B. Jesus was surely boxing in all such distortions of the 7th
Commandment. He demands integrity and purity of the heart, imagination, the
mind, as well as the body. The root of lust is found in the heart
and sneaks out through the eyes and the mind. Some people today might try
to justify their own lust by saying that Jesus talked about married people, not
singles. No, he means everyone and every form of sexual sin.
C. If a man looks on a woman or a woman looks on a man and lets their imagination
be consumed with sexual desires, they are committing spiritual adultery.
God takes this no more lightly than he takes spiritual murder! Jesus shocks
them by telling them to commit self-mutilation rather than going
to hell with a whole body! Gouge out the offending eye and chop off the offending
right hand rather than have your whole body thrown into hell! What
is he saying? He's using a dramatic figure of speech to impress them on how
seriously God considers kingdom righteousness. No, he isn't literally
telling them to hack themselves to pieces, but he is saying you better be ruthless
in your battle against an immoral heart! Otherwise that habit of spiritual
immorality will condemn you to an eternal hell. Hebrews 13:4 "Let marriage
be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will
judge the sexually immoral and adulterous."
D. Our eyes are the major gate for men who fall into this sin. How does it
work? Listen to this quote from Bill Shannon in his book: A Passion
for Purity
"The process of lust is simple. It begins with attraction, it turns quickly
to dissatisfaction with your current situation – you become dissatisfied
with your spouse or with the one that you are supposedly in love with – it moves
to fixation on another and you become ungrateful, discontented, and obsessive.
You become filled with lust, and your thoughts and your mind are filled
with images of the other person. You have nothing on your mind but an appetite
for them. This person becomes on object of worship. They eventually
are not even considered a person, because they're an object, and you're
just looking for satisfaction. Gentlemen, this is classic idolatry!"
Spiritual adultery is self-idolatry in a nutshell.
E. God has given us the gift of seeing, the gift of eyes, but the eyes need
to be disciplined by a godly spirit that is controlled by kingdom righteousness.
Job said this in Job 31:1 "I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could
I gaze at a virgin?" Have you men made a righteous covenant with your eyes
not to look lustfully on any woman? A covenant is a dead-serious commitment
to do something by God's grace. The eye is the gateway to the imagination,
protect that gateway with all your might.
D.A. Carson: "Imagination is a God-given gift; but if it is
fed dirt by the eye, it will be dirty. All sin, not least sexual sin, begins
with the imagination. Therefore what feeds the imagination is of maximum importance
in the pursuit of kingdom righteousness." (The Expositor's Bible Commentary,
p. 151.) In his famous little book: Thoughts for Young Men, J.C. Ryle
says essentially the same thing: "Imagination is the hotbed where
this sin is too often hatched. Guard your thoughts, and there will be little
fear about your actions." It would be good to memorize Phil. 4:8.
F. If you young women and older women as well want to live out kingdom
righteousness in this area, you will never dress in a manner
that invites or tempts a man to commit spiritual adultery in his mind
because of how you dress. Paul says in 1 Tim. 2:9 "I want women everywhere
to dress modestly, with decency and propriety…" Modest dress means
not dressing in a seductive or tempting manner that draws attention to your body.
A man is responsible for his mind and imagination; a woman is responsible
for the way she dresses so as not to make it any more difficult for
the brothers to maintain their purity. Both men and women are responsible
for their words, looks, actions, and all the non-verbal messages that they
send to other people. Ephesians 5:1-3 "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved
children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself
up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 3 But sexual
immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as
is proper among saints." Not even a hint of spiritual adultery should
be present among God's holy people.
Summary/ Conclusion: To really be saved and full of Christ, our lives
must be lived out with a heart for 'kingdom righteousness.' We must
know the grace of God so strongly that we resist spiritual adultery,
resist spiritual murder and have tender hearts to reconcile any fractured
relationships with brothers or sisters in Christ. If these things are important,
vital, imperative to you, then you have a heart for kingdom righteousness.
Examine your heart and see what applies to you.
Take initiative and take action where it is needed in these things so that
our King Jesus Christ will be glorified and so that you will be able to pray
in all honesty: "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth, in my life,
as it is in heaven!"
Let's pray,
H.